


They Tumble Blindly As They Make Their Way

by impossiblesongs



Series: Thoughts Of Flight (AU) [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amy and Rory's life in Manhattan plus One, F/F, F/M, Slow Build, Time Lords are dicks, and other DW characters just go with it, future & past versions of Jack Harkness, the Twelfth Doctor makes an appearance or two
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-15 16:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 35
Words: 69,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1311856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossiblesongs/pseuds/impossiblesongs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The Doctor hadn’t taken another companion since Manhattan and his visit to a parallel universe did nothing but convince him he’s better off alone. Spoilers are a thing of the past yet secrets are what lie hidden ahead in the Doctor’s future.</i> - Sequel to <span class="u"><a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/857268?view_full_work=true">Justify My Thoughts Of Flight </a></span></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue.

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.  
>  **Author's Note:** SO, just so we are clear this chapter is taking place a few months after River’s death in the Library, years before the Doctor ended up in that parallel universe, to explain how it all took place with help from a VERY special character. The next chapters will be continuing from the way _[JMTOF](http://archiveofourown.org/works/857268/chapters/2711545)_ ended. (Fic title from The Beatles song ‘Across The Universe’)

**_Prologue_**

**_New York, 1947_ **

 

The lights in the kitchen blinked from the not-so-calm rain that had graced Manhattan that morning. Rory didn’t let that bother him and instead continued reading the morning paper in their very modest kitchen area. At least, he did until he heard a crash followed by Amy shouting unhappily from their sitting room.

 

Rory startled and stood quickly, not bothering to refold the newspaper and instead went to check what had upset his wife. He found Amy clearing the desk of various soaked through papers. The typewriter that sat on the desk was drenched as well.

 

“Oh, not again.” Rory groaned, noticing the window beside the desk had been cracked open by something, allowing the rain to flow inside freely. He went to Amy’s side to help her clear away her latest novel before all of it was properly ruined. He made it a point to step around the various pieces of glass were scattered from the breakage. Most of it was on the floor yet he was surprised to find some glass had been shattered with enough force to land on the desk.

 

“You know,” Amy began, “its times like these that I really hate living here.”

 

Rory understood Amy’s frustrations. They’d had to move to five different places since they’d arrived in Manhattan nine years ago and this current apartment wasn’t exactly their dream home. No, that one was somewhere in the future with a bright Tardis Blue door out front. It had probably leased out to some other lucky couple by now.

 

“Did everything get ruined?” Rory asked, grabbing a spare blanket sitting on a sofa nearby and hanging it over the broken window for the time being.

 

“It was rubbish anyway.” Amy answered, yet Rory could see her disappointment. She’d been working on this book for almost a year.

 

“I better call the landlord.” Rory said glumly, knowing the man wouldn’t be happy to be hearing about another broken window.

 

“No,” said Amy, “No, I’ll call him. You have to get to work.”

 

“Are you sure? I could stay.” He offered.

 

“Course you can’t, Stupidface. How do you reckon we’ll pay for the darned thing if you lose your job because of it?” Amy reasoned. “They barely hired you in the first place.”

 

Before Rory could answer back there was a knock at their door.

 

Amy eyed him worriedly. “You don’t think he heard it break, do you?”

 

“Doubtful. He doesn’t wake up this early.” Rory answered but picked up the umbrella beside their coatrack, just in case. “Go get a frying pan.” He told Amy. She quirked a brow and he shrugged, “Might be someone extra dodgy.”

 

“Dodgier than our landlord?” Amy huffed and then relented. “Don’t answer it without me.”

 

Rory waited and whoever was at their door knocked again, louder this time. Amy was back at his side momentarily, the frying pan up and ready to be swung if need be.

 

“Who is it?” he asked when they reached the door. He found himself resenting the building they lived in. The doors didn’t come with peepholes so it was impossible to better see who stood on the other side.

 

“A friend.” Came the answer from a male voice they’d never heard before.

 

“A friend, eh?” Amy leaned in closer to the door. “How about a name, mister?”

 

“You wouldn’t know my name.” Replied the man on the other side. “But I can prove my business here if you’d be so kind as to open your door.”

 

The Ponds could hear this stranger talking to someone else in a reassuring tone. They glanced at each other before Amy lowered the frying pan.

 

“Who’s out there with you?” she asked.

 

“Open the door and find out.” The stranger said.

 

Amy looked to Rory and handed him the frying pan. “Hit when and if he attacks.” She whispered.

 

“No!” Rory whispered back, “We don’t know who’s out there.”

 

“The point in finding out would be to open the door, which I’m doing.” Amy said, “Be ready.”

 

Rory rolled his eyes and took the frying pan from his wife. She waited for him to prepare himself before unlocking the three locks on their shabby wooden door and pulling it open.

 

There, before them, stood a tall, handsome man and someone smaller huddling into his long dark blue coat, trying to hide away from the rain. When the face of the child peaked out Amy’s breath caught in her throat. Amy knew those bright orbs well. They were otherworldly in their startling shade of green.

 

“Mind letting us in.” Said the handsome man, his smile wide and even a bit flirtatious. “Wouldn’t want the little one catching a cold.”

 

Amy was too busy staring at the little girl to reply so Rory was the one who answered. He had to grab at her wrist and pull her aside so the strangers could come in. The man closed the door behind them and as he did his coat swung aside. That was when Amy caught sight of the gun at his waist. Rory caught on as well and readied to swing the frying pan. The stranger seemed to sense their awareness and held both his hands up in surrender.

 

“I can explain.” He said. “If you let me.”

 

“You better make it quick then.” Rory replied, eyes doing a quick once-over on the little girl the stranger brought with him. Amy could see the child got under his skin as well.

 

“My name is Captain Jack Harkness.” Said the stranger.

 

“I’ve heard than name before.” Amy recalled suddenly. “You know the Doctor, don’t you?”

 

“Yes, ma’am, that I do.” Jack nodded. “But I’m not here because of him. I’m here because your daughter asked me to deliver something.” Jack pulled out a letter from his long blue coat. “And this.”

 

Amy felt her heart hammering, her eyes travelling from the letter to the little girl beside this Jack fellow. The child’s hair was a dark brown color and the familiarity of which her little fringe fell into her eyes gave Amy such a glorious ache that at that point she _knew_. She had to reach out for Rory before she collapsed to her knees.

 

“It’s all in the letter.” Jack informed and noting Amy’s state handed the letter to Rory. “If you’ll both excuse me, I have business to attend to. And you,” Jack turned to address the little girl. He knelt down to her height and smiled, “You’re safe now, kiddo.”

 

“No more running?” She asked, her voice tiny and afraid.

 

Jack grinned yet Amy could swear tears were gathering in his eyes.

 

“That’s the plan.” He told the child. “Do me a favor, remember me like this.”

 

Amy wondered what he meant but he said no more on the subject. Instead, he placed a kiss on the child’s round cheek and told her to go sit on the sofa nearby. He waited until she did so before he stood to face the Ponds.

 

“It’s a real honor to meet you both, finally.” Jack said.

 

“Tell me how you got here.” Amy demanded. 

 

Jack smiled and shook his head, “I’d love to stay and chat, honestly, but I have a date with a few monks back in the future and heads will roll if I’m late. Like I said, it’s all in the letter.”

 

Rory’s fingers twitched around the envelope in hand and he immediately handed it over to Amy.  

 

“This will be goodbye.” Jack informed them before walking over to their front door. He paused when his hand was around the doorknob, “Ah, and Mins here likes a warm cup of milk before bedtime, it steadies her nerves, so if you could get her one right now it would be for the best.”

 

And out he walked.

 

Rory locked up behind Jack, placing down the frying pan and the umbrella. “I’ll, erm, get that milk.”

 

Amy glanced at the child sitting at her sofa before tearing into the envelope. Tears emerged as well as a smile when she first glanced at the penmanship.

 

_Hi, Mum. Hi, Dad. It’s your daughter. I’m afraid I have bad and good news. Good news first. You have a granddaughter. Her name is Minerva Katerina Song. She’s quite ridiculously perfect, but I suppose all mothers say that of their children. I can’t tell you the exact date of her birth but I can tell you she just recently turned seven._

Amy can see movement from her peripheral vision. She assumes it’s Rory with the warm milk for Minerva and keeps reading. 

_Okay, that’s done with. Bad news now. I’m so sorry, Mum. Dad. If you are holding this letter, it means I am no longer around to care for her._

Amy stops breathing.

_Now, Mum, I know you’re first question will be why you. Why you and Dad and not her very own father, well, I’ve asked myself that plenty. The truth is, she will be safer with you. The Doctor has no knowledge of her birth or her existence and I plead with you to make sure it stays that way. At least until she is of proper age to choose for herself. So much has happened since we last spoke. So many versions of him, younger and more reckless, that it is wiser to leave her a secret to all but us. Please, take care of her and keep her safe. Even and especially, should the unfortunate time come too early, from her father. He’s a good man, we all know this, but dangerous. I cannot suffer losing her like I lost the both of you, I will not. No matter how it pains me to keep this secret I cannot allow anything to happen to our little girl, not even him. I love and miss you dearly, evidentially until even my dying day. Your daughter, Melody._

 

“What does it say?” She hears Rory ask.

 

Amy doesn’t answer but instead lets the letter fall to the floor. She walks over to the sofa and envelops the child in her arms, tears streaming down her face.

 

“It’s okay.” Amy tells her granddaughter. “You’re okay now, Minerva Song. Everything is going to be just fine. You don’t have to be brave all by your lonesome for a second longer.”

 

Amy caught sight of Rory reading the letter, his frown now being accompanied with tears.

 

“We are here, we won’t ever leave you, ever.” Amy vowed and stroked the child’s precious Raggedy Man-like hair. "And you are loved.”

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

**_New York, 1957_ **

 

Amy and Rory raise Minerva without much trouble until her seventeenth year. It’s around noon when Rory gets a call from the hospital desk that his daughter was brought in. It always irked him to hear them call Mins his daughter, because truly she was not. She’s his granddaughter but, of course, no one can know that.

 

She was bleeding out of her abdomen, the attending told him. She was stabbed for protecting Amy during a robbery on their walk home from the park.

 

 Amy is by her side when he reaches them, crying and panicking because it’s started. Even Rory can see the glow at the tip of Mins’s fingertips.

 

“We need to get her somewhere, Rory!” Amy whispers fiercely. “We can’t let this happen here.”

 

And he knows she’s right.

 

“Rory, what do we do?!”

 

When he doesn’t answer she goes back to their granddaughter’s side, stroking her floppy hair back gently and assuring her that everything was to be alright.

 

To be sure, they had gone over the whole regeneration duty with Mins. They’d told her of what she was and what would happen but just because they knew didn’t make the fact that Minerva was literally dying any easier.

 

It was then that Rory got the idea.

 

“You’re not going to like it.” He told his wife beforehand.

 

As he expected, Amy hated the idea, but they had nowhere else to go. So they bundled Minerva’s dying seventeen year old body, nicked meds to keep her death at bay for as long as possible and took to searching for the underground tunnels they’d learned of all those years ago when they’d first stepped onto American soil.

 

It was a truly haunting experience. Everywhere they turned they expected to be met with those creepy Silence creatures. It’s then, carrying Mins through the tunnels, that Rory recalls a certain conversation with the girl’s mother, his own daughter.

 

He’d asked what River had meant, _a worst day coming for you_ , and River had answered him truthfully.

 

_The day is coming when I'll look into that man's eyes, my Doctor, and he won't have the faintest idea who I am._ She’d said. _And I think it's going to kill me._

 

Mins cried out in pain then. He and Amy could see the golden light starting to spread out, starting to push out and around.

 

“You are going to be fine.” Amy promised their granddaughter. “You are safe. We’ll be right here.”

 

The hardest part was setting Minerva down and watch her writhe in agony while they moved as far away as they could.

 

Regeneration, a whole new coloring to work with, indeed.


	2. One.

_**One.** _

 

It had been a very dreary and silent four months for Madame Vastra and her wife Jenny Flint after returning from the parallel universe. They had not had a visit from the Doctor since and the constant worrying over his well-being only got worse every passing day.

 

From what Mickey Smith in the parallel universe told them they had instructions to follow and so they did, eventually.

 

The couple were to return to their own world and place the vortex manipulator once owned by Jack Harkness, later by River Song, at the doorstep of Amelia Pond and Rory Williams’ old residence – or so Strax had relayed onto them. A card has seemingly been delivered by post while they’d been gone yet there was no return address on the letter.

 

The gadget had been almost a friendship bracelet of sorts for Jack Harkness and River Song.

 

Madame Vastra had come to learn over the years that apparently River Song had gotten a hold of the item from Dorium Maldovar upon Captain Jack’s request. It still cost Professor Song a pretty treasure, dealings with Dorium always did, but it was hers in the end. After she died the vortex manipulator was sent back to Jack and he kept it until the day came where he had no use for it anymore.

 

If gossip was to be believed, the handsome Captain Jack had disappeared out of sight for an entire year and it cost quite a disruption with some very important people. Allegations that he broke certain time travelling laws concerning fixed locations came into play yet speculations turned quiet from one day to the next. There was never confirmations of where he’d travelled but one location named did happen to be New York. With the timelines so tangled it’s no doubt there would be repercussion handed out for jumping in and out of there. With the quieting of such speculations the man known as Captain Jack Harkness had never been seen again.

 

Considering what he became, as far as Vastra understands, a head in a jar has no use for wrists or vortex manipulators. That’s how the item came to be in her care.

 

Vastra was suspicious of the card and its demand, naturally. A vortex manipulator could cause much trouble in the wrong hands so she decided to do some research first. When two weeks passed and no sight of the Doctor arose, she had instructed Jenny and Strax to ready for a conference call. If anyone would know what was happening, River Song definitely would, only the Doctor’s deceased wife never showed.

 

Something was definitely amiss. River Song never missed conference calls if she was summoned, so long as the Doctor’s friends kept him from the knowledge of said meetings. When Jenny had asked the Professor why, River had smiled sadly and answered, _“Because I’m dead. You know that man as well as I do, if there is a shred of hope he will cling onto it. If he finds out there is a way of contact he will never move on.”_

 

And not one of them could argue against that.

 

The thing is, with no River Song to help them there was likely to be no answers found. Not quickly, anyway.

 

“I’m afraid we are well and truly on our own.” Vastra concluded after several more tries at conference calls. With River’s continuing silence it resigned any hopes Vastra had to figure out what exactly lied ahead for any of them.  

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

It was around the end of the fifth month that the Doctor’s three friends received another letter. They gathered in the sitting room to discuss it.

 

“Still no return address.” Vastra announced, slightly annoyed.

 

“I suggest filling your reptilian disappointment with the rush and exhilaration of battle.” Said Strax. “Shall I ready explosives for your emotional healing?”

 

“No, Strax.” Jenny Flint answered him, her own sweet sounding voice grim as well. She motioned to the unopened envelope in her wife’s hands. “Are you going to open it? It could be from him.”

 

Vastra offered an indulgent smile, “If it were, the shade of the envelope would be a different color. He so loves to make statements when he can.”

 

“Maybe he’s undercover.” Jenny suggested with a shrug. “Better knowing than not knowing.”

 

That much was true. Vastra tore open the envelope and was startled when a light beamed from inside, causing her to drop the item in hand. Strax was quick to arm himself, retrieving a fire poker that had been propped beside the fireplace.

 

“What in the world…” Vastra muttered as the light gathered in her sitting room to form a human figure. The image gave away no detail to the figure’s face but a female voice blustered around them.

 

“You lot,” it said, almost affronted, “I’ve need of that vortex manipulator. Seriously, I send a very nice, punctual letter and yet you’ve ignored doing as I ask. And I asked very politely! Do I have to come ‘round myself and nick it from you like a common criminal?”

 

“Who is that?” Jenny whispered to Vastra.

 

“I don’t know.” Vastra told her.

 

 “Here’s the thing,” the faceless figure continued, “Since written letters don’t seem to sway you I’m sending a virtual image letter, thus, myself. You need proof I’m not going use the vortex manipulator to destroy the world and all that jazz, I can’t give you what you require but I can give you a reassurance that if you don’t send that little gadget my way the universe will be in a lot of trouble. You have questions, I have answers, but I can’t give them to you. They’re not _my_ secrets to tell.”

 

The way the voice phrased that had caught Vastra’s ear.

 

“If you’d please, with sugar and lima beans or whatever you folk like these days, do as my first letter requested I’d be so indebted to you,” there was a hesitation before the adding of, “And so would he. You’ll find a medium wooden box waiting for you at the location, if you do indeed do as I plea. Cheers.”

 

Then the image faded, leaving the Doctor’s three friends at a loss. Strax placed the fire poker back on spot and picked up the now empty envelope that lie on the floor.

 

“Who do you reckon that was, Miss?” Jenny asked.

 

Vastra stood decided, “I don’t know, my dear, but it appears we have an errand to run. Fetch our coats, Strax. We leave for 2014 Earth tonight.”

 

“Shall I pack the grenades?” Strax asked.

 

“No.” Vastra answered. “But ready a teleport feed. We’ll need it to get back.”

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

Reluctant and full of nothing but unanswered questions, all three made the trip to Earth to lay the vortex manipulator as the first letter had instructed. As the figure had relayed to them, a medium sized box was awaiting them on the steps leading to the bright Tardis Blue front door that the Doctor had gifted to his previous companions.

 

Madame Vastra hesitated in placing the vortex manipulator in the box but eventually she did. The wooden box shut itself and a handprint glowed on its surface. In seconds the item disappeared into thin air.

 

Teleportation, was Vastra’s immediate guess. Strax tried to trace the source but the search proved inconclusive.

 

“Let’s go home.” Vastra said finally.

 

Strax teleported them back to Victorian London. They hung their coats in silence once back inside their home until Jenny offered to make some tea.

 

“I’d love some, thanks!” Came from the other room.

 

Jenny gasped, “Oh, it can’t be.”

 

The Doctor’s three friends shared looks before following the voice to the sitting room.

 

The visitor sat there waiting.

 

“Hello again.” Said the Doctor, face ever so young yet the entirety of him looked so very old and tired. He sat on their sofa holding the empty, unaddressed envelope in his hand. “You all seem to be rather busy. I’ve been getting all sorts of readings on the Tardis about various travels from here to there and everywhere.”

 

He stood and they watched him circle around them.

 

“Then I get a reading of such magnificent proportions that quite honestly astounded me at first glance. Time energy is radiating all over your home, the Tardis was attracted to it like a moth to a flame. She brought me here.” the Doctor stopped his circling and looked at them, expectant. “Mind explaining that?”

 

Vastra, full less of bravery and more of outrage, marched up to the Time Lord and smacked him right across the face. The surprise made him drop the envelope and clutch at his quickly reddening cheek.

 

“Leave us.” She instructed to Jenny and Strax. She waited for them to be gone before continuing. Strax, bless him, had the decency to shut the doors behind him.

 

“How _dare_ you?!” She shouted when they were alone. “Months, Doctor! It’s been months!”

 

“ _OW_!” The Doctor cried out, glaring back at her while nursing his sore cheek with both hands. “Totally unnecessary! And rude! And I tend to make people wait around for me if have you noticed!”

 

“We thought you dead!” Vastra raged on. “We are your _friends_ and you dropped out of the world without a single word! Did you think we wouldn’t notice?!”

 

The look of guilt settled on the Doctor’s features and his shoulders sagged. Then he shrugged angrily, “I’m not sure why it’s your business but I am sorry if you took offense to that.”

 

Madame Vastra blinked upon the sight of him. She could hardly recognize him.

 

“What’s happened to you?” she demanded. “You are not the man I knew.”

 

“No.” He agreed, though even he seemed saddened by that. “I am not.”

 

The Doctor sighed heavily before moving back to the sofa and taking a seat, burying his face in his hands.

 

“So much has happened.” He started, removing his hands and looking up at her. “I will never be as I was. The Doctor is dead.”

 

Vastra’s eyes went from him to the empty envelope he had dropped. She picked it up and went to sit beside him.

 

“This envelope arrived here by post yet there is no return address.” She told him. “There was no letter either, not really.”

 

She couldn’t tell if that peaked his interest or not, it would have in the past. Regardless, she continued.

 

“Someone, or something, implanted a virtual image pop-out.” Vastra relayed and held up the envelope. “This is genuine paper. It should not be able to hold such technology inside it. Not in this century, or the current one. But perhaps somewhere in the future…”

 

Madame Vastra watched the Doctor carefully. He reached for the envelope and she gave it to him.

 

“Well, such blast of technology would explain the energy clinging to your entire home. Technology from the future can leave a nasty aftereffect when used before it’s time.” He glanced at her, considering. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

 

“I am suggesting, Old Friend, that maybe it’s time I told you the truth.” Vastra said.

 

“The truth about what?”

 

Vastra shut her eyes and took a deep breath before confessing. “About the fact that I’ve been conversing with your dead wife behind your back and keeping it from you because she asked me to.”

 

The Doctor’s jaw went tight and he looked away. His anger had become a calm, quiet sort of rage and if pushed the wrong way it could become deadly. So Madame Vastra didn’t push, she waited.

 

“How?” He said finally, voice tight and eyes still avoiding resting on her again.

 

“A conference call, of sorts.” She answered. “It’s a psychically-induced way of communication procured while one is unconscious. Dreaming has its very own sense of time travel, wouldn’t you agree?”

 

When he didn’t comment she figured she should go on.

 

“Professor Song insisted we keep this from you. She thought it wouldn’t be likely for you to go on with your life if you still had ties to your past keeping you from your future. We agreed.”

 

The Doctor rose from the sofa and started pacing. The silence extended and Vastra was beginning to grow concerned until suddenly he snapped and started smashing various breakables in the sitting room. Her favorite vase was among one of the Doctor’s victims.

 

When he turned to address her an accusing finger was pointed her way.

 

“You had no right,” He told her, “either of you. I want to speak to her, _now_.”

 

“You can’t.” Vastra said. “She’s gone.”

 

His face grew even paler than before. “What do you mean gone?”

 

Vastra stood, smoothing out her long black gown. “We’ve tried to contact her yet she didn’t show up. The envelope you still hold did.”

 

The Doctor looked back down to the item.

 

“I am sorry for keeping this from you, truly.” Vastra offered him. “I hope you can find it in you to forgive us because by the looks of it you will need all the help you can get.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this chapter explained how Oswin got a hold of River's vortex manipulator adequately and provided you with the River/Jack Harkness BROmance we all need in our lives.
> 
> (And how vortex manipulators are actually supposed to be used as BFF bracelets, duh.)


	3. Two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> REMINDER, I **am** diverting from canon, so things are happening a bit differently in this story. Thanks for sticking with me so far. Enjoy.

_**Two.** _

 

It was the bathroom mirror breaking that gave off a warning Amy finally learned to recognize.

 

During their time in Manhattan, she and Rory, they’d not picked up that happening as something significant. In the olden days, when she was young and still had a life that included the Doctor, it was the meteor showers that gave away timey-wimey activity. Soon after such sightings, River Song would pop up in their backyard and they’d have themselves a proper family gathering. Those days were long gone now. Ages away, both backwards _and_ forwards in time.

 

The thought that somewhere out in the universe she and her daughter possibly still had contact in some mad way or other was a comfort. Rory had passed away three years back at the age of 82 and Amy finds that missing him also gave light to how much she’d missed River too. She’s always missed her, of course, but it was easier pushing those feelings away when Rory was around to cheer her. Rory was gone now and it was getting harder to find cheer in much but Minerva anymore.

 

After her granddaughter’s first regeneration they’d had to disappear from Manhattan. The three of them relocated to Brooklyn and lived a very quiet, but happy, life. Rory worked his way up to becoming a full medical doctor and Amy honed her writing skills, producing her multi-chaptered children’s book _Summer Falls_ and so many others. She started working on a manuscript for _Night Thief Of Ill-Harbour_ too.

That manuscript was finished now, which was the reason Amy and her granddaughter had found themselves back in Manhattan once again. Amy’s publishing house was there and they’d requested her presence for the book design. She and Mins had started off in a modest apartment building but after the first month in Manhattan they’d decided to stay, affording a nice little house with more than enough space for the two of them. It had been lovely and carefree up until Amy heard the cracking of glass in the bathroom.

 

“Broken glass the giveaway to alien activity instead of meteor showers.” Amy muttered to herself when she went to inspect the damage. “I will never be impressed with that.”

 

“Is it fixable?!” Mins called from the other room.

 

Rory, rest his soul, had hypothesized it was the time energy to blame for the glass breaking. That it probably clung to them still after so many years of time travelling so whenever things of the spacey-wacey kind were happening they would be the lucky ones to get a broken glass somewhere near them that would probably needed fixing. Amy had gone along with that only now in this time there was something, _someone_ , more probable: her dearest Minerva.

 

It had crossed Amy’s mind since before they moved back. She was the daughter of the Doctor and River Song. The regeneration energy she’d let out into the Manhattan air all those years ago had to have a reaction back then with the timelines around New York and now the return of her presence was not likely to be met without _some_ sort of chaos. Besides, Amy had long learned not to dilute herself with the notion that everything would be just fine. Coincidences never happened to them without a reason.

 

So, from the second the ‘alien alert system’ went off coupled with the simple fact of Mins’s parentage and how likely their history of dealing with chaos was to be passed onto her, mostly on the grounds of _the Doctor’s daughter, duh!,_ Amy initially did what had to be done. She had to get Mins out and away from the house.

 

She wasn’t the same girl she was at seventeen (understatement) but if some big bad was coming for her Amy wasn’t about to give them a head start. It broke her heart, the idea that her granddaughter would have to start running, but if it kept her safe there was no arguing against it.

 

“I think you’re going to need to go buy some tools from the shops.” Amy hollered from the bathroom. Her voice had thickened some with age and it sounded gravely even to her own senile ears.

 

Before Rory passed away it would have been him heading out with their granddaughter on an ‘errand’ to get her out of eyesight and keep her safe but with Rory gone Amy’s only option was to send Mins out on her own. Her granddaughter is a grown woman now, yes, but it still doesn’t ease her conscience to send her on her own.

 

Mins appeared at her side with some dusting tools for the broken shards of glass and handed it over. She leaned against the door-frame and crossed her arms over her chest. “Didn’t Gramps have some spare tools lying around somewhere?”

 

Amy smiled, her heart giving a heavy ache at the mention of Rory.

 

“Those rotten old things?” Amy snorted, “They’re useless, trust me. Go buy some new ones. There’s some money in my purse.”

 

Mins raised her brow knowingly at her grandmother before shrugging, “If you say so, Nanna.”

 

The girl kissed Amy’s cheek before going and doing as she was told. Amy can hear the side door of their kitchen shut a few minutes later and exhales in relief. Not for the first time Amy finds herself thankful that Mins is much like her mother this time around. River’s adult years rather than her teenage ones, that is.

 

There are however the few oddities that are all her father’s traits though. There’s the complete disregard for planning, the whole Making It Up As We Go Along is not something Amy is fond of, to be sure. The girl has better fashion sense than her dad yet there are the few exceptions where she’ll don something equally ridiculous and insist it’s _cool._ Like the red cape Mins found at a garage sale when she was eight and refused to take it off until she was twelve. Mins is not exactly shy, she’s as blunt as her mother was but there is the _deer-in-the-headlights_ look she gets every once in a while that is the exact same one the Doctor used to get in the early days when River Song stopped by in the Tardis and started throwing all sorts of innuendos his way. It makes Amy laugh heartily, those blessed similarities. The joy of having a part of her Raggedy Man there with her, even if he’s not.  

 

Mins no longer resembled the Doctor as she had before she’d regenerated at age 17. In fact, Amy’s grandchild returned to them in the body of a four month old baby. Her eyes once green had become a pale blue, almost translucent. Her mop of dark brown hair was transformed into a beacon of light in the color of bright orange. The strands, when they grew out, proved to be and unruly set of locks, setting as it pleased no matter how Amy tried to style it. Minerva’s red hair looked like fire coming alive when the wind blew through it. Her skin also was no longer only a milky pale but now she was dotted with freckles.

 

Once their granddaughter started talking it was clear she’d adopted Amy’s Scottish tongue. Amy remembers thinking, _finally! A proper ginge!_ Rory had been slightly disappointed, losing a tenner in a bet with Amy on what Minerva’s nationality would end up being didn’t help. _(“We live in America now, she’ll be American.” Rory had said. Amy had shook her head at that nonsense, reminding him of Melody regenerating into Mels and how places had nothing to do with the process, people did.)_ He’d be groaning miserably about another Scot in the house constantly and how he would need backup for such things but truly, deep down, he was so very pleased about it.

 

Perhaps the only physical thing that remained telling of the Doctor’s genes flowing through Minerva were the set of gangly limbs that sprouted when the girl went through a sudden growth spurt at the age of nine. As of today the girl stood taller than Amy by an inch or two. She had the long, thin legs and knobbly knees that were all in the fashion of her father’s. Minerva’s arms were still thin, spindly looking things – always had been - but the girl had an otherworldly strength in her that once shown what she was made of no one could ever think to name her frail, no matter her body type.

 

Those thoughts seemed to bloom from lifetimes ago, Amy thinks while she cleans after the glass and throws the broken pieces in the kitchen bin afterwards. Minerva may look only nineteen years old to the human eye yet in truth she was decades older than that. It’s a remarkable thing, Time Lord aging.

 

Amy then opens the cupboard beneath the sinks and bends down to remove the various cleaning supplies stuffed inside. Her knees ache from the hard floor but she ignores her joints and their protests. When it’s empty she pulls open the secret compartment she’d made a few days after they’d moved in, reaching inside and searching. She finds what she’s looking for.

 

It’s not long before a familiar static sound appears and the smell of something burning fills her nostrils.

 

“I’ve been waiting for you.” Amy says, having to take hold of the side of the kitchen sink for support to get herself standing again. When Amy turns around to face the intruder she’s surprised by how young she is. And blonde. The intruder however seems just as surprised by the gun in Amy’s hand.

 

“Who are you?” Amy demanded, noticing River’s vortex manipulator strapped around the young woman’s hand. It was enough to give her pause. “Did you steal that?” She motioned with the pistol to the gadget that used to be around her own daughter’s wrist.

 

The young woman held both her hands up in surrender, smiling. “No. I did not, Amelia Pond.”

 

“Williams.” Amy corrected. “My name is Amelia _Williams_.”

 

The blonde shrugged, “Didn’t think you’d be the type to condone use of a weapon, if I’m honest.”

 

“Neither did I.” Amy replied. “But I’m an old woman now and I still have some protecting to do.”

 

“You said you’ve been waiting for me, then you must know why I’ve come.” The girl said. “My name is Jenny, but you can call me J. It’s what my friend calls me.”

 

Amy smiled back but it wasn’t a kind one, it was one with bitterness laced in the gesture because there was something she’d been hiding. For the past year she’d hidden the documents and doctor visits from Mins, hoping it would get better, hoping the diagnosis would just disappear. Sometimes she even hid it from herself but now with this Jenny girl appearing in her kitchen wearing River’s vortex manipulator the truth was plain and there was no denying. She was most definitely not long for this world.

 

“I know my daughter.” Amy said, tears gathering in her eyes. “She was never caught unawares, not if she could prevent it. She’s River Song, she always knows.”

 

Jenny nodded.

 

“So,” Amy continued, her palm squeezing around the pistol in her hand nervously, “that said, I had a feeling she’d probably planned something for this. She wouldn’t leave her baby alone in the world if she had any say in it. She proved that when she sent my granddaughter to me when the time came that she wouldn’t be able to care for her anymore. I know my daughter and it’s only plainly logical to assume River would have planned for when I became unable to do that as well.”

 

“You’re good.” Jenny breathed out, her white teeth gleaming as her smile widened.

 

“I know what I am.” Amy snapped. “I don’t need you telling me. What I need to know is how.”

 

“How.” Jenny repeated and blinked at Amy curiously.

 

Amy shrugged, “You say you didn’t steal that thing on your wrist so if you are telling the truth you must have known her.”

 

Jenny’s smile slipped when realization set in. The girl looked truly gutted by the topic Amy was aiming for. That was enough of a confirmation for Amy to lower her gun.

 

“You mean how she… died.” Jenny concluded.

 

Amy sighed and set the gun down inside the sink before continuing.

 

“That’s the only thing I never figured out, you know? With the timelines being so split hardly anyone travels to New York in this time. Not even River dared to try it, not after everything.” Amy paused, having to recollect herself before she continued. “When Minerva arrived I waited for years for My Raggedy Doctor to show up and tell me himself of what happened to my daughter but… I guess he was too scared of what I would say. So please, if you are telling the truth, then tell me. How did my Melody die?”

 

Jenny wore a sad smile on her face when she replied.

 

“She died saving millions, including the Doctor.”

 

Amy had somehow known in her bones the second her granddaughter’s tiny face peaked out from Jack Harkness’s coat that River was gone but having it confirmed in words only made the ache burn all the more. Tears fell down her old, wrinkled face.

 

“My brave girl.” She whispered to herself, shaking her head sadly and wiping her face clean with the back of her hand. “She was always so brave, my Melody.” She told Jenny. “I searched for her. All around New York, I did. Even after Mins came, I still looked for her, but I never found her.”

 

“I have this for you.” Jenny was holding out a letter.

 

Amy remembers when the handsome Jack Harkness did the very same thing, only back then he was handing Minerva into their care. From the looks of it, this young woman was looking to take her away.

 

“What is it?” Amy asked, feigning indifference.

 

Jenny’s smile was back, fully beaming. “It’s my proof, of course.”

 

Amy hesitated, wondering if it had been wise to place down the gun.

 

“I’m not going to harm you.” Jenny said, as if reading her mind.

 

“Ha!” Amy said grumpily, moving over and snatching the letter from the girl’s hand. “As if you would dare. I’m royalty to your likes, am I not?”

 

Jenny laughed. “I can see why the Doctor liked you.”

 

Amy stopped halfway through opening the letter and stared at the blonde. “You know the Doctor too then?”

 

“Just open the letter.” Jenny advised.

 

Amy glared at her for a few seconds before doing just that. There were several pages and the penmanship was not one she knew but the more she read the more she found she couldn’t stop. By the time she finished and looked back up to the blonde she had no idea how to exactly react.

 

“You’re…” Amy began, only to be cut off by the door at the side of the kitchen opening up.

 

“A’right. I’ve got the proper tools of the trade, Nanna. What say you to demolition first of the entire bathroom bef-” Minerva stopped, staring from Amy to the blonde stranger in their kitchen. She set the bags of newly bought equipment she’d been told to buy on the table and turned to examine them both properly.

 

“So who’s your new friend, Nan?” Mins inquired. “She’s a bit young for you, if you ask me.”

 

Amy couldn’t help cracking a smile at that but it soon fled from her face.

 

Minerva noticed and Amy saw the girl’s face change as worry took her over. “What’s wrong? What is it, Nanna?”

 

“Nothing, love. Nothing’s wrong.” Amy assured, walking over to her granddaughter and taking her hand. Amy motioned over to Jenny. “This girl, her name is Jenny.”

 

Amy eyed the blonde and a sadness filled her heart. Amy had been the only family Mins knew of that was still alive other than the Doctor. Now this stranger was here, this girl, this Jenny. She’d come to take Mins away, Amy knew, but she’d never expected this. For Jenny to be of actual relation to her granddaughter. A half-sister, of sorts.

 

It may be selfish of her to think of it, but she had liked this time together. Just her granddaughter and herself. This wasn’t the case anymore, though. Amy, whether she liked it or not, was old and dying. Mins shouldn’t be all on her own, not when she needn’t be. Not when this person had River’s vortex manipulator and obviously held her memory with such a deep admiration. Not when there is someone else out there who obviously wanted and was willing to care for Minerva. To protect her and to keep her safe, as it seems Amy would no longer be able to do in the near future.

 

Amy knew what the right thing to do was, even if she didn’t want to.

 

“Minerva,” Amy said, gripping Minerva’s hand tighter.

 

_It’s time to start running now,_ she wanted to say, because it would probably sound cooler to put it that way. A bigger part of her wanted to scream _Don’t leave me!_ But mostly it was _Goodbye_ that was on the tip of her tongue.

 

Instead, Amy pulled her granddaughter into her arms and hugged her for what she was sure would be the last time. Her eyes shut and she remember River, and River’s hugs, and River’s laughter and oh, how she _missed_ her brave little girl.

 

Amy pulled away reluctantly, her tears falling freely.

 

“Nanna?” Mins wiped away at her grandmother’s tears, her young face so concerned. So confused.

 

“Jenny is your sister.” Amy chose to say, because _goodbye_ suddenly hurt too much. 


	4. Three.

_**Three.** _

 

Amy watched Minerva carefully. Her granddaughter’s brow furrowed and her eyes held questions, then disbelief, and finally anger.

 

“No.” Mins looked over to Jenny and glared. “I’ve got no sisters. No brothers neither.”

 

“Mins,” Amy started, remembering the letter in hand and looking down to it.

 

“No!” Mins shouted and the volume caused Amy to flinch away from her granddaughter.

 

Mins then walked over to Jenny, stopping right in front of her, seething. Amy is surprised by how alike her rage is to the man she’d once called her best friend, her Raggedy Man.

 

In her height, the redheaded Time Lord towered over the blonde yet Jenny didn’t seem to flinch. She met Minerva’s stare without hesitance.

 

“Who are you?” Mins demanded. “Why have you come?”

 

“For you.” Jenny answered. “I came here for you.”

 

“Why?”

 

The blonde smiled widely, “I’m here to take you home.”

 

Mins scowled, “Who do you think you are coming here and saying that? I _am_ home.”

 

It was Mins saying those words that made Amy realize how much of a lie that was. Not a whole lie, but something of one. She watched her granddaughter grow and mature and all the while there was a wistfulness inside of her that did the same. Amy knew it well. She’d been through it herself. Missing the extraordinary while being stuck in the perfectly ordinary, only there came a time where Amy chose this ordinary life willingly. Minerva hadn’t. In fact, her granddaughter never even got to see what, by definition, is her birthright. She is a full blooded Time Lord and she longs for those stars. One only has to look at the girl to see that she’s been left standing still, bursting within herself from being denied the chance to truly soar. Mins may not even realize it yet, probably has no idea that need is in there, but Amy does. It’s time she acknowledged it so that Mins could do the same.

 

Her granddaughter is still mouthing off at Jenny when Amy cuts her off.

 

“You aren’t though.” Amy said sadly, folding and unfolding the letter she still held in her hand.

 

Minerva’s attention settled back on her grandmother.

 

“What?”

 

“You aren’t home.”

 

“Nanna…” Mins’s voice sounded small and hurt.

 

The sight was so utterly painful for Amy to behold. She walked towards her granddaughter and placed the letter in her hand, closing Mins's palm around the papers.

 

“I love you so much, Mins.” Amy attempted a smile. “But if you think this life is enough for you, you’re wrong. Deep down you know it too.”

Minerva’s face hardened.  Her stubbornness was taking over, her eyes hard and voice tight when she spoke.

 

“I won’t leave you.” She proclaimed. 

 

“I know.” Amy laughed and it ended with a sob. “I know that.”

 

Amy pulled her granddaughter into her arms and hugged her tight. It was now or never, so she whispered, “But I’m afraid it’s me who’s to be leaving you.”

 

Amy felt Mins’s body go stiff in her embrace, frozen the moment her words had sunken in. The choked, strangled noise that came from Minerva’s throat made Amy squeeze her tighter.

 

“I’ve lived my life and I’ve had my share of stories.” Amy told her. “It’s time to live out your own. Make some stories,” Amy pulled her head back to look Mins in the eye. They were already red and tears trailed down her precious face. Amy wiped the falling tears away before cupping Minerva’s cheeks and she remembering words spoken once a very long time ago.

 

“Listen to me, every life is a pile of good things and bad things, alright?” Amy said. “The good things, they don’t always soften the bad things but vice versa the bad things don’t always spoil the good things and the most definitely don’t make them unimportant. And you,” Amy brushed a strand of Mins’s red hair behind her ear, “You, my sweet, brave, wonderful girl. You are on my pile of good things I never knew I’d have again. Your mum and dad, they would be so proud of you. So very proud.”

 

Mins cried harder.

 

“You are going to go, do you hear me? You are going out there and no matter what happens, no matter where I am, I am going to watch over you still.”

 

And Amy did smile then. A genuine one, because she realized goodbyes weren’t always necessary. Goodbye isn’t always how you finish a story. Sometimes all an ending means is a new beginning.

 

“I’ll watch you run.” Amy promised, and knew down to her long-grown old bones that no matter what awaited her in the afterlife, she would.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

The Doctor spun the envelope in hand around and around between his fingers, stopping to peek inside the paper item and ending up scowling for probably the millionth time. He’d been at it relentlessly for the last ten days, charging to and from the Tardis like a madman to ask Vastra, Jenny and Strax of anything that came to mind while he inspected the piece of paper. Anything that could possible prove to help him find out more about this mysterious envelope with no return address.

 

In spite of his tireless efforts there remained no trace of the packaged pop-up his three friends were presented with when they had first opened it. There had been no left over technology when he’d scanned it. No left over data of what model produced such a thing to narrow down exactly what year said technology was from. There was simply nothing. Absolutely nothing.

 

“You’ve not slept, I see.”

 

The Doctor was surprised by Vastra’s voice. He hadn’t even heard the Tardis doors open. She offered him a fresh cup of tea. He tucked the envelope inside his jacket pocket and took the cup gratefully.

 

“Can’t.” He said, taking a sip. “Sleep, that is.”

 

“Would you appreciate being drugged?” Madame Vastra offered and the Doctor had to chuckle.

 

“No, no. I’m fine.” He assured. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

 

“That’s is not a comforting thought.” Vastra informed.

 

The Doctor sighed and set the cup down.

 

“You’ve redecorated.” His reptilian friend commented, her eyes taking in the new layout of the Tardis.

 

The new design was a purely mechanical one, greys and shiny metal overshadowing the once homey and yellow warmth of a color it used to be when Rory Williams and Amy Pond had been aboard the ship. Vastra doesn’t miss how the entirety of it practically screams how much of the Doctor has been lost and how all that remains is the shell of a man once so full of life.

 

 _He is a hardened man,_ Vastra realizes, _where there once resided kindness and hope at his core something else has spread._

 

 “It’s nigh unrecognizable.” She told him. 

 

“That was generally the intent.” Said the Doctor, lifting himself from his seat and moving over to the monitor.

 

Watching him, Vastra wonders if his hearts would ever be capable of being reversed from their path of turning into solid stone or if it truly was too late.

 

He started typing into the keyboard, “I’ve found no trace of technology left behind in the envelope. Everything I’ve tried to extricate in forms of technology readings is a dead end so I finally decided to give up on that route.”

 

Vastra frowns. _He never used to give up._

 

He went on, “If we have any hope of connecting the dots it’s proving to be an utterly rubbish idea to put our hopes behind that as a possible lead and so I’ve been thinking instead about the paper used.”

 

“The paper?” Vastra neared him, looking upon the monitor.

 

“Yes,” he confirmed, fetching out the envelope and swatting her gently on the nose with it. “The paper. See, if we find out what kind of paper it is, the tree used – if it is even a tree, that is - and the chemicals used to contain a hologram pop up without leaving any evidence behind it could be exactly the clue we need in order to proceed. If we find that then perhaps we can track down the makers of such a masterpiece. Of course then we will have to stop them from continuing the production of such items for the rest of existence because lack of evidential proof will help no one, least of all the human race. Or anyone, as a matter of fact. Just imagine what would happen if the bad apples in the universe could get a hold of such a thing.”

 

He shuddered at the thought.

 

“I’m assuming you have no plan as of yet.” Vastra said.

 

“Oh, you know me.” The Doctor strode around to the other end of the console. “Making it up as I go along. Works well enough.”

 

Vastra allows him a small smile. “Best get to work then, Time Lord.”

 

“On it, ma’am.” He says with a salute, quickly taking to pulling levers and pressing buttons and such.

 

When she exits the Tardis and shuts the doors the blue box dematerialized almost immediately. She can only hope that this time he’ll return to them sooner than his previous disappearance.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

The Doctor had begun to input all information he’d worked out so far into the Tardis to be analyzed. Surely something in all the years of accumulated data would turn up something relevant to his cause. He was typing with quick fingers and trying to suppress the wanting glee that is starting to bubble up inside of him. He doesn’t want it, not anymore. Fun, for him, is over. This is simply taking care of his own messes for once.

 

“Well, Old Girl, I’ve nowhere left that I want to go.” The Doctor says to the Tardis, finger hovering over the _enter_ key on the keyboard, “All I’m going to ask of you is that you do what you do best. Take me wherever it is that I need to go.”

 

There was a time where her answering hum and vibrations would bring a smile to his face. Those days were long gone. If the universe expected a _Geronimo_ to accompany him on this journey, the universe thought wrong.


	5. Four.

_**Four.** _

 

Jenny had to keep glancing at the redheaded girl keeping stride beside her. Minerva had been completely silent the entirety of the way since they’d left her grandmother’s home. Sullen and heartbroken, she was. Jenny knew the feeling well. Being taken away from someone you loved, or them from you. Either by circumstances or the universe or any other thing that can get in-between, because they usually do.

 

Minerva had been told to pack lightly but that made no difference with the vast amount of length they had to walk. It was indeed a long way since they’d started off. New York was a ticking time bomb and landing there was like setting fire to a room full of gasoline, so in hopes to avoid more damage, Jenny researched the area scrupulously for years before all of this actually took place. She’d found there was a certain area that would be a safer ground for a time traveler to take off on. At least she hoped.

 

“It’s not long now.” Jenny assured Mins but got no response from the girl.

 

The blonde was tempted to reach out and place a comforting hand on the other girl’s shoulder, or perhaps give her hand a tiny little squeeze. Something that said _I’m Sorry_ and _It Will Be Alright_ all in one gesture. This wasn’t the time though. With any little push Minerva could very much change her mind and head back to her grandmother. Jenny couldn’t allow that, couldn’t _risk_ that. And it wasn’t so much to do with the reason she’d been sent in the first place, not anymore. It was different now, it was personal, because this girl beside her was of her own kind. The proper kind, anyway. Minerva Katerina Song was in every sense her half-sister and Jenny knows she’s not likely to ever get another one. She had to protect her, no matter the cost.

 

Jenny led Minerva through Manhattan until finally she hailed over a cab and they both got inside. It took them longer than Jenny would have liked to get from Manhattan to New York on account of the traffic so it had turned dark out. Minerva kept to her silence the entire way.

 

The car eventually pulled up beside an alleyway.

 

“You sure I can’t get you girls somewhere nicer?” The driver asked. “Sure isn’t a good idea to be out in these parts all on your own.”

 

Jenny assured the driver they would be fine and paid him in cash. With a fretful look as the sisters got out of his cab he drove away.

 

“This way.” Jenny beckoned Minerva to follow after her. They went down into the alley, the dark sky making it hard to see the path ahead. Jenny reached over and grabbed Minerva’s hand so she wouldn’t fall behind. They twisted and turned through the brick-like maze. It seemed to go on forever.

 

Jenny stopped finally and pulled back the flap on the vortex manipulator strapped to her wrist. As she typed in coordinates she cast a glance Minerva’s way. The girl seemed slightly spooked, her lips pouting and brow wrinkling.

 

Jenny smiled, “Sensing something?”

 

Mins’s eyes fell back on the blonde but the girl didn’t retort.

 

“You should.” Jenny told her. “According to a homeless bloke and his description, in 1970 your mum regenerated on this very spot for the first time. That energy, it’s residual. Something or other about fixed times, I don’t really pay attention to the technical stuff if I’m honest. There are other spots in New York like this. The Empire State building, for instance. Nasty Dalek business in the 1930s. We could’ve gone there but it would be a bad idea. Too many tourists.”

 

Jenny held out her arm and waited for Minerva to take it. Mins entwined her arm with Jenny’s hesitantly.

 

“Taking off from here will give us a better chance of keeping anyone up in space from tracking us down. I’m kind of breaking galactic government law by traveling here.” Jenny took one more look at her half-sister. “You might want to close your eyes for this one.”

 

Minerva sighed, obviously annoyed with Jenny’s suggestion but the girl did as she was told.

 

Then they were gone.

 

Seconds later a wind caught in the air and the Tardis materialized.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

“You rang, I came.” Are the first words out of Oswin’s mouth when she arrives at the Stormcage Containment Facility. She walks closer to the prisoner’s cell and slips past the metal bars, gliding through, ghost-like as ever.

 

The man is huddled up in a corner, knees up to his chest and face covered with dried and new blood. The bruises along his cheekbones are fresh, the purplish-blue color confirms that. When she reaches a hand to further inspect the injury he flinches away from it.

 

“Okay, okay.” She takes several steps back. “I get the memo, no touching. Sorry. They did a real number on you, this lot. If only they knew why you did it.”

 

“They can never know.” He told her, his words coming out like it agonized him to even try. Oswin knows he speaks the truth, because no one can know. Not yet, not this.

 

He hardly looks like himself anymore. Soon enough his sentencing will be announced and he won’t ever be again.

 

“I don’t got much time, you know how it is.” She told him. “State your business, Captain.”

 

Captain Jack Harkness exhaled noisily, moaning from the pain of doing so and opened his eyes.

 

“That thing you implanted,” He began.

 

“The Occipital Lobe thingamajig,” Oswin finished. “I remember.”

 

“They’re going to find it soon. If they find it…”

 

Oswin caught his meaning instantly. “It fired off, didn’t it?”

 

His silence was her answer.

 

“What did you see?” She asked him.

 

Jack tried to sit up straighter but his body was too sore to move much. “It happened while I was being interrogated this morning. It saved me from having to be fully conscious for this little beauty.” He lifted his shirt and there was a nasty burn mark reaching from the top of his ribs down to his navel. “Anyway,” he continued, “I only got a glimpse. It felt like getting shot by lighting. An alleyway.”

 

Oswin nodded, “Okay. That’s good, that mea-”

 

He cut her off. “And the rift. My rift, in Cardiff. If they land there, they’ll need a place to hide. I won’t know her then, it’ll be too early. If I turn her away…”

 

“You won’t.” Oswin said confidently. “You should know me better by now, Captain. I sent my associate prepared.”

 

Jack seemed to relax completely. “Oh, that’s good to hear. If I wasn’t being tortured by the hour I’m sure I’d kiss you right now.”

 

Oswin smiled sadly. “I can block it out, you know. I can make you numb to the pain, if that’s what you want.”

 

Jack shook his head. “No.”

 

“You’ve done your part.”

 

“And it was my honor.” Jack assured. “I spent a whole year moving from place to place all across time and space with that kid, and not just for my friends. I love that little girl like she was my own daughter and I kept her safe when her mom asked me to. If that means I’m to die here, like this, then that’s a life well spent in my book.”

 

Oswin smiled, “You’re a good man, Harkness.”

 

“So they keep telling me.” He grinned back, his busted lip making the smile turn into a cringe. “Besides, it’s time I go join Ianto. He’s going to be pissed I made him wait so long. Maybe we’ll deflower a cloud or two up there beside the pearly white gates.” He joked. “Give all of heaven’s occupants a show they’ll remember.”

 

Oswin truly frowned then. She knew Jack wouldn’t die here. He’d end up a big head in a jar but she wasn’t about to take his hope away from him. Not now. He needed that hope in order to get through these next few days before it happened. And as River Song would say, spoilers.

 

“Alright then.” Oswin knelt before him and opened her palm, light swarmed from her fingertips. “This might sting a little. Like a thousand little ants chewing through your skull. You okay with that?”

 

“Get on with it,” Jack said through gritted teeth. “I’ve literally had worse.”

 

Oswin focused the technology to go through the skin at his forehead and into the root of his mind, sending the decomposing energy field to find the little metal bug she’d implanted in the Captain’s brain a few years back. Jack suffered his agony in silence until his body couldn’t take it anymore and he blacked out.

 

In the space of three minutes the device was fully extracted. His jailers would find no trace of the device even if they’d known to look for it.

 

“I’m sorry.” Oswin said to him before her image broke apart and faded into thin air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there was a specific Torchwood reference to Ianto Jones and his death in this chapter that broke my heart to write. If it did the same to you, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. And also there you go, the reason Jack Harkness disappeared for a whole year. He was taking care of River and the Doctor's little girl at River's request until the time came for him to deliver Minerva to Amy and Rory (see: **[Prologue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1311856/chapters/2725942)** )


	6. Five.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Several guest appearances in this one. Specifics at the end notes.

_**Five.** _

 

The blue box that had materialized sat parked in the New York alleyway. The occupants inside scurried to the door, the Doctor’s current companion excited to see New York for the first time.

 

Martha Jones and the Doctor rushed outside only to be met with the darkness of night.

 

“I don’t understand.” Said Martha, glancing at the Doctor beside her. He looked just as puzzled as she felt.

 

“Oh, that’s not right.” The Doctor said, his nose wrinkling in confusion. “I set the coordinates for New York but this is,” he paused, raising his finger in the air for a moment before popping it into his mouth. He hummed, “Oh, this is definitely New York but not 1930s New York. How strange…”

 

Martha Jones took another look around. “Well it’s not too bad. Maybe we could get some dinner or something. New York is New York, after all.”

 

“Nah!” The Doctor shook his head adamantly, much to Martha’s disappointment. She would have liked a dinner with him, alone and without so much running. His confession in their last trip was weighing on her mind. How he’d told her the truth about his people and the Time War and how he was the last of his kind. She hadn’t known what to say so instead she just listened and found herself overcome with how much she truly had begun to feel for him. It frighteningly felt a lot like love.

 

“I promised you the Empire State Building in 1930, I’m giving you the Empire State Building in 1930.” He told her. “Never say I don’t take you anywhere, Martha Jones.”

 

He took Martha’s hand in his and led her back inside the Tardis, setting the coordinates once again and thinking of how odd it was for his blue box to land in an alleyway in the middle of nowhere. She’d never done that before.

 

The next landing was a much better one and right on spot too. Martha had the reaction he’d hoped for when she turned to find the Statue of Liberty at direct eyesight. Oh, it was marvelous, he thought. New York in the 1930s. And, as they would soon find, Daleks.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

It had been a week since Captain John Hart had shown up and completely thrown Jack Harkness’s life upside down. His old partner from his life working as a Time Agent not only seriously stole the spotlight from his return to his team in Torchwood but, then again, not all of them had been overjoyed of his return as he’d expected them to be. In all honesty, they were pretty pissed at him for ditching them. That he understood. He remembers how pissed he was when the Doctor left him all those years back so he knew it would take time. Doesn’t it always?

 

“Oh, what have we here?” He heard Owen comment outside his office. Jack stood from behind his desk and made his way over to find Gwen and Tosh looking over Owen’s shoulder at the computer screen.

 

“What is it?” he asked.

 

Gwen looked back at him, “It looks like some kind of energy is working up in the Rift.”

 

That certainly got his attention. Jack made quick, long strides to get to where his team stood and saw what they were talking about for himself.

 

“That’s not just any old energy source.” Jack muttered, knowing Vortex Time Energy when he saw it. He hurried back to his office to get his coat and his gun. He glanced at his vortex manipulator and hesitated. If the readings on the computer were correct it would be a bad idea to wear it when he met whatever, or whomever, had caused the disturbance.

 

“Jack.” It was Gwen. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

 

Jack took off his vortex manipulator and shoved it into his safe, locking it.

 

“You know what it is.” Gwen concluded.

 

“Care to share with the class?” That was Tosh.

 

“No time to explain.” Jack rushed past them but Owen grabbed him by the arm before he could take a step further.

 

“Seriously?” the man said, “You piss off to your bloody secret Doctor and leave us to take care of all this stuff, and all we get in return is more secrets?”

 

Ianto walked in just then with a box of pizza. He noticed their tense looks. “What’s going on?”

 

“Oh, just Jack and his secrets.” Owen released his hold on Jack. “What else?”

 

Jack sighed, “This isn’t the time okay. I’ll tell you everything as soon as I’m able.” He promised.

 

“At least give us something, Jack.” Gwen said gently. “Haven’t we earned that much?”

 

Jack looked to the four of them and nodded. “We could have a paradox on our hands. That reading, it’s from a vortex manipulator. My vortex manipulator.”

 

Tosh blinked, “Are you saying there’s to be two of you walking around Cardiff?”

 

Jack shrugged, catching a glance at Ianto and pleased to see the man seemed more than okay with the idea of two of him.

 

“I don’t know.” Jack allowed truthfully.

 

“Then isn’t it a bit foolish to go meet yourself out there?” Tosh questioned. “Paradox and all, I mean.”

 

“Tosh is right.” Owen agreed.

 

“I don’t think that’s an issue.” Ianto said, catching all of their attention. He pointed to the computer screen closest to him. “Seems whoever it is, they’re on the move and are just about to knock at our front door.”

 

“What do we do, Jack?” Gwen inquired and Jack found himself thankful for her putting the ball in his court, so to speak.

 

“Ianto,” Jack said, “Go see who it is. We’ll monitor from here.”

 

“Leave the pizza.” Owen told him. Ianto rolled his eyes and set the pizza down before going up to greet whoever was coming into the Torchwood offices.

 

Jack moved over to the screen and watched pensively, wondering if it was really a future him or a past him at their doorsteps. Or, worse, if it wasn’t him then who or what could possibly have their hands on his vortex manipulator?

 

**XXX**

 

 

Amelia Williams was on her death bed and coughed ferociously, her lungs clutching inside of her and making her whole body tremble with agony. Blood quickly took to appearing in the white napkin she’d used to cover her mouth. The cancer had indeed spread in the last year. Her doctor’s say they’re amazed she’s lasted this long but it wasn’t really like her to simply go gently, no matter what destination awaited her.

 

The drugs were good though they seemed to help little these days. When it got to the worst of it, her sickness, money came in the post one day without a return address. There was only a note inside with the name of a hospital scribbled onto it and her heart almost burst from recognizing the penmanship. It was Mins’s handwriting and Amy couldn’t help be so glad that wherever that granddaughter of hers was, she was safe enough to send her old Gran back some cash in her time of need.

 

That’s how she’d ended up here, in a hospital just outside of Connecticut. It was a private hospital with good caretakers, a very personal touch to their care here. Amy complains to them all the time but they just take her ramblings with a warm smile and she’s glad for it. She’d not want to be cooped up in a proper hospital full of people wandering the halls and nurses only coming in to check she hadn’t died. They were good to her here, she told her own stories full of adventures and running and aliens and they all suffered them patiently and at least looked, or pretended to look, interested. They in turn talked of their days too, of their families and friends and she learned to live vicariously through them. Yes, good people indeed.

 

“How are you today, Mrs. Williams?” Nurse Penny asked when she made her rounds in the morning. She was a young and cute blonde thing, so peppy and naturally good-hearted that Amy took to her instantly.

 

“Dying.” Amy replied casually.

 

Nurse Penny gave her a small smile and shook her head, “Nonsense. You’re far too young.”

 

Amy gave a small chuckle, though it hurt her to do so. Nurse Penny checked her vitals before upping her pain meds and sitting down at the chair beside Amy’s bed.

 

“What would you like to talk about today?” the nurse asked her. “I warn you, my day after work yesterday had quite an awful lot of ups and downs. You probably won’t believe they actually happened when I tell you.”

 

“You’d be surprised.” Amy replied. “The life I lived makes me more than likely to believe anything. These eyes have seen enough to know anything is possible.”

 

Nurse Penny smiled at her and reached to grab Amy’s hand, “And that’s why you’re my absolute favorite.”

 

Penny started off with her home life and that deviant husband of hers. By what she’s heard, Amy thinks they married younger than they should have but doesn’t relay that out loud. She feels her body calm and soon her eyes have slipped shut, listening to Penny and enjoying the pain medication while it lasts.

 

She’s sure she’s fallen asleep when a much missed wheezing groan catches her ear. She smiles and thinks of that wonderful blue box in her youth and how she dreams of it still, always. She’s never forgotten. Amy can almost feel the gust of wind given off when the box would show up and when it would take off.

 

Nurse Penny gasps, the sound of it is frightened. “Oh my god.”

 

Amy opens her eyes and the blue is brighter than even sunflowers. Nurse Penny has gone stiff at her bedside and is gaping at the Tardis in shock.

 

“Told you it was true.” Amy tells her faintly and her breath catches the moment she hears the doors being unlocked from the inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Timey-Wimey happens, thus, The Tenth Doctor & Martha appearance happens just before the fourth episode of the 3rd Series [Daleks In Manhattan](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Daleks_in_Manhattan_\(TV_story\)), directly after the episode [Gridlock](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Gridlock_\(TV_story\)). As far as I know at this point this is only a once to happen with the 10th Doctor appearing in this AU. It was just something I thought would be fun, the "what-if" scenario plays nicely I think with the whole Tardis taking the Doctor where he needs to go, no matter the face her wears and whether he realizes it or not.
> 
> Also, The TORCHWOOD team serves as another guest appearance taking place directly after the first episode of Series 2 [Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Kiss_Kiss,_Bang_Bang_\(TV_story\)), though they **will** be part of a more than once appearance.
> 
> And to clarify, the letter that came from Minerva to Amy in the post is from a future Mins where... well, spoilers.
> 
> Hope that isn't too difficult to follow.


	7. Six.

_**Six.** _

__

The Doctor grabs his coat hastily from where he’d draped it over the console. Before he could shrug it on entirely he heard a small yet echoing sound. A sort of _clank_ ish noise, something small coming in contact with something else, something hard.

 

He turns and finds nothing amiss around him but when he glances down to the Tardis floor he sees it. It’s the flash drive John Smith had given to him before he’d departed from the universe that wasn’t his own. The one with the supposed answer he’d searched for and could never find on his own. The ultimate solution to the most painful of all his problems.

 

 _It’ll work,_ John had insisted. _You’ll get her out._

 

He hadn’t even gone through the information though his entire being had wanted to. At first, anyway. Days went by and then even more of them passed. He’d grown weary over the contents stored inside, too tired to even try to hope or act on the information he’d been gifted with. He couldn’t find an ounce of strength inside of himself that would provide him with what he needed. The energy that would make him believe, no matter how impossible the task, that it was worth the effort to _go_ and _try_ and _do_. He’d either succeed or he’d fail. He felt he couldn’t survive failing and so he reasoned that the only way that wouldn’t happen is if he never even tried.

 

So, ultimately what it came down to is he’d grown cowardly the more the time had passed. It doesn’t bother him as it should and he’s grateful he lacks that ability.

 

The Doctor sighed, finally moving to retrieve the small item from the floor and tucking it away in his top pocket where it would no doubt stay. Of course, he would have placed it elsewhere only he couldn’t bear to do that either. He had to have it close but hidden, had to know it was there in reach just in case he changed his mind. It will however remained as is, tucked away, accessible yet untouched. It’s very much a representation of the universe that still turns and exists and how he’s done nothing to join it. To move on. He figures the irony in that should have suffocated him by now but unfortunately it hadn’t.

 

When the Tardis finally lands he forgoes on environment checks. He trusts the Old Girl did as he asked, though she did take a bit longer than usual to arrive at whichever destination she’d brought him to.

 

Time and too much space, both of which serve him no good without someone by his side to share it with.

 

He takes long strides over to unlock the Tardis doors, a hand pushing forward without so much as a second thought.

 

His first thought is _how?_

 

His second is interrupted by her voice, thickened from age and sickness.

 

“About time you showed up, Raggedy Man.” Says Amy. He notices that the simple effort it takes to speak leaves her breathless. He doesn’t want to see this yet he can’t look away. He’s walking forward before he even realizes it, nearing though all he wants to do is turn away and go back into his Tardis. Fly away and never look back.

 

He glances at the nurse sitting at Amy’s bedside. She’s sitting still, frozen from the shock of his abrupt entrance.

 

Amy reaches her hand for him and he takes it. She’s pulling him to sit on the bed she’s bundled up in. The wires attached to her are impossible to ignore, as is the beeping on the monitor that keeps track of her heartbeat. Her heart is beating slower than it should be. It’s the beating of a dying heart so it’s comes as a complete surprise when she slaps him right across the face, making it count by focusing all the weight and strength she has left in her sickly body.

 

He’s silent in his reaction, his face turned sideways while internally he's screaming from the complete agony it left behind.

 

Amy’s eyes are all fury but her voice comes out calm and controlled. “And that’s for my daughter.”

 

The slap was apparently loud enough to snap the nurse at her bedside back to reality. She then proceeds repeating _Oh my goodness_ almost as if it’s a chorus, one that will never end.

 

“Oi, hush yourself! It’s not every day I get family to come visit.” Amy tells her, voice sharp and quieting Penny instantly. Her eyes rest back on the Doctor, “Oh, by the way, a gentle when it should be a very loud because I _am_ supremely cross at you reminder that you should feel really, really horrible about that.” She pauses before adding, “Among other things.”

 

He realizes then that she knows. He doesn’t know how, but she knows.

 

“This is dangerous.” He chooses to say, avoiding the subject. “The Tardis landing in New York. I don’t know why she did, more importantly how.”

 

Amy coughs before informing him that they are _so_ _NOT in New York, moron_.

 

It’s at that point that Penny interrupts. “I can allow you some privacy if you’d like”

 

The Doctor gives the nurse a weak smile, “I’d appreciate that very much.”

 

Nurse Penny look to Amy to make sure it’s alright to leave her and nods her head when it’s obvious that it’s more than okay. Once she is gone the Doctor reaches to take one of Amy’s hands in his.

 

Amy smiles sadly. “You should have been the one to tell me. You’re her husband and my best friend. It should have been you.”

 

The Doctor looks away, tears he can't even attempt to stop slide down his cheeks. “I know.”

 

When he recollects himself he decides he has to ask.

 

“Who told you?”

 

Amy closes her eyes, sighing.

 

“Spoilers, Raggedy Man.” She opens her eyes again and he can see the genuine joy she feels from finally getting to say it herself. She raises a brow before saying the word once more. “ _Spoilers_.”

 

It’s more of a whisper, this one is private, just for him. He immediately picks up on there being something more to it. A hint of sorts with an underlying meaning attached.

 

Unbeknownst to the Doctor, Amy did have more of a solid clue for him to work with. It was relayed to her the day her granddaughter took off with her half-sister. She hadn’t any idea why Jenny had told her about it at the time but she realizes what she’s supposed to do with that information now.

 

“You know how there’s that thing about messages in bottles?” Amy asked, not bothering to give him any chance at answering. “There’s probably a planet somewhere out there that’s specifically dedicated to such things, yeah?”

 

The Doctor’s brow furrowed. “I suppose.”

 

“Do me a favor, Raggedy Man.” She said. “Give me my last one, my dying wish or whatever you call it. You find that planet, do you hear me? You find it.”

 

Her order was final. He could do nothing else but nod.

 

“I will.” He promised.

 

“Good.” Amy’s body seemed to sink further into the mattress, whatever tension had worked up in her slipped away easily. “And who knows, you _might_ even have a bottled message.” She smiled cryptically. “Wouldn’t that just be ever so interesting?”

 

He blinked one too many times and that’s when she knew he’d finally caught on. It hurt to laugh but she couldn’t hold her amusement to herself. She marveled her bowtie wearing best friend and wondered just how he managed to be this all knowing madman, saving worlds and the universe time and time again, yet he could be so utterly clueless in certain subjects. Those of the personal kind filled that category nicely.

 

“Hey,” she called softly, squeezing his hand and pushing through the sudden pain in her chest so unlike the kind she’s experienced before. She smiled at him.

 

He smiled back at her. “What is it, Pond?”

 

“Gotcha.” She murmured, exhaling her final breath.

 

Amelia Williams shut her eyes and she did not open them again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I cut this a bit short but something _is_ better than nothing right?
> 
> So, the whole message in a bottle thing ties in with actual canon according to [Jenny's TardisWikia Page](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Jenny_\(The_Doctor's_Daughter\)) under "Other Matters". 
> 
> The passage relayed the following:  
>  _"After leaving Messaline, Jenny met a man in a cantina who told her about how messages used to be placed in bottles and thrown into the sea. Jenny then wrote a letter to her father, explaining that she wasn't dead and while she didn't know how to find him, she was having fun and hoped to make him proud. She placed her letter in the bottle and hoped that one day her father would find it."_


	8. Seven.

_**Seven.** _

 

Oswin had busied herself with cleaning out several data bugs that had wormed their way into the Library’s hard drive again. It was messy business and she’d nearly lost the last bit of archives that remained unharmed since the planet had overrun with Shadows.

 

A state of melancholy followed her throughout the day for somewhere out there in time River Song’s mother had passed away. When she finally was able to set her tasks for the day aside she headed to her usual place of solace, the space occupied with what remained of the woman named Melody Pond.

 

“My condolences.” Oswin told the unconscious woman that had been in her care for so many years now. “I’d like to have known your mum. She seems a real firecracker. And that dad of yours as well.”

 

Professor Song did not reply. Her body remained a lifeless entity. Technically, the woman wasn’t asleep. There was no consciousness in that head of hers but she _was_ alive.

 

Oswin genuinely felt sad for the loss of River’s mum but she consoled herself with the fact that this was the moment she’d been waiting for. This event had to pass in order for everything to start aligning.

 

River, her mum and her dad had been a family of paradoxes and fixed points. The fact that they had existed at all and the universe allowed them to was a miracle of sorts. Then again there was that whole incident with rebooting the universe via big bang two but that’s not the point.

 

The point is, there was absolutely no way Oswin could restore River Song to her full self until Amy and Rory’s final hour came upon them both. Only until their existence was finally and truly over would Oswin be capable of ensuring the woman could resurrect to her proper self. Those were just the plain and unfortunate facts.

 

Oswin’s amazed at the astounding amount of effort time and space had to shift around in order to accommodate the presence of the Pond-Williams brood. The three of them had mattered that much in the world and had to have existed no matter the cost, whether that meant cracks in time or starless skies.

 

“Now, Professor Song,” Oswin addressed her somewhat-of-a-patient, “You’ll owe me big for this one. Don’t think I’ll be forgetting that just cos you’re a saucy little mischief with _great_ hair.”

 

Oswin realized oddly enough that such a description fit into what she considered her kind of woman. _Saucy. Mischief. Great hair. Yep, that about covers it._

She did miss her very own blonde and saucy mischief maker. Sending J off to protect River’s own little girl was something that had to be done but that didn’t make Oswin miss the girl any less. The Keeper Of The Forest sighed, nostalgia filling her senses and tying her heart up into aching little knots the more she mulled over the giant gaping hole J left behind. Every moment without her presence becomes unbearable on a whole other level.

 

The room that served to preserve River Song had always been eerily quiet but the silence that Oswin is met with now seems to be of a harsher kind. It echoes the true extent to River’s complete lack of self presently.

 

“Best we get a move on.” Oswin relayed, knowing she’d receive no response in return. She forced herself to focus. “Right,” she exhaled, “X051 Protocol, stat.”

 

A backup control panel materialized in front of her and she inspected just how far off River was from awakening properly. River’s mind had to be shut down completely, devoid of all function and transferred into the hard drive that had been under Cal’s command.

 

Oswin remembers looking on as River sacrificed herself for the Doctor that day. She remembers moving her body to safety and the Library closing down permanently. She’d learned that she had to keep River’s mind from responding to any outside treatment while her consciousness lived on inside the computer’s hard drive. Brain activity would have proved utterly useless and River’s body had been an irreparable force in those days.

 

Then the Shadows somehow infiltrated Cal’s virtual world and that was something Oswin hadn’t planned for. It became another damper in her efforts to restore River Song back to life. Downloading River back to her own body had been the tricky bit. All that Human plus Time Lord energy being pumped back inside a less than secure body could have ruined everything.

 

Luckily, it didn’t. The Shadows had done their damage though and River’s brain did the only thing it could do. It flicked the off switch, plunging her even further from reality. The ability to reboot cognition in the woman’s brain at that point would have been a human equivalent of trying to saving files into a flash drive only for the computer to suddenly die on you, wiping out massive amounts of irreplaceable data. Erased, just like that.

 

The only way to get the Professor’s brain up and running again would be to shed some light into the darkened nights her consciousness had retreated to.

 

“And I’ve got just the thing too.” Oswin grinned, typing a command into the control panel.

 

The information relayed back to her made Oswin scowl.

 

“Jesus, that Chinny Boy husband of yours hasn’t even plugged the stupid flash drive into the Tardis yet!” Oswin shook her head, so very much disappointed in him.

 

“So much for John Smith’s late night hard at work and the whole dying bit in order to actually pass that information on.” She grumbled unhappily. “No matter, he won’t help us along so I’ll just do it myself. _Again_.”

 

The brunette waved a hand over the control panel and the image swirled in various circles before disappearing entirely.

 

“After this I expect an official award with my name on it. Oswin 27810, it’ll say. Oswin 27810 For The Actual Win.”

 

Satisfied with her terms she relocated to the safe house that held Jenny’s shuttlecraft. She climbed in and turned on the communications data, making some choice changes that would definitely get the attention of the person she sought out. Oswin pushed the phone call into orbit and waited for it to be picked up by any satellite dish that happened to be near her location.

 

“Kate Lethbridge-Stewart’s phone,” Came a female voice blustering from the speakers, “One moment please.”

 

_Huh, must be an assistant._

 

“Ma’am,” Oswin heard whomever answered say in hushed tones. “The number, I recognized it. It’s him. It’s _him_!”

 

The daughter of the great Brigadier was the next to speak.

 

“Doctor,” Kate answered, assuming the call was from indeed from him.

 

“Close enough.” Oswin told her. “I implanted the Tardis phone line to come up on your mobile, it’s the only way I know you’d pick up.

 

“Who is this?” Kate demanded.

 

“Who I am doesn’t matter.” said Oswin, “What matters is you need to obtain something that is far too dangerous for even the Black Archive.”

 

There was silence.

 

“Still listening?” Oswin asked.

 

“Closely.” Replied Kate.

 

“The Doctor has a flash drive, the data on that little beauty has knowledge of the Doctor’s own personal life that could prove disastrous for everyone involved if fallen into the wrong hands. I need you to persuade him to upload that data into his Tardis and I’ll wipe it out the second it’s uploaded.”

 

“And how can I be sure you’re not under the ‘wrong hands’ category?”

 

“Kate Lethbridge-Stewart.” Oswin smirked. “You are very, very good. What do you know of the Library?”

 

This next silence felt like one of realization.

 

“Personal.” Kate repeated, voice gone quieter, more sullen. “I know of it, yes. He did mention losing someone dear to him a long while back. He did not however provide the specifics.”

 

“It has been a long while.” Oswin agreed. “Let’s not make it any longer for him then, eh?”

 

Oswin knew this ask was a bit much. It was probably going against every protocol UNIT had when dealing with an unknown source randomly phoning one of their top people. That if Kate did proceed to act on this she would be doing so with no solid proof of whom had phoned her. Then the whole disguising herself under the Doctor’s phone number did happen to be a tad bit shady. Oswin only hoped what little she did reveal would be enough.

 

“How exactly do you intend to procure this information?” Kate questioned, curious to what Oswin would answer. “No one can extract information from the Tardis. It’s protected against such attempts.”

 

“You’re right on that one, except I won’t be extracting anything. She’ll be the one sending it to me.”

 

Kate momentarily went speechless. Clearly she'd not been expecting _that_ answer.

 

“How?”

 

“Because she’s alive in there,” Oswin replied, “and she knows what she’s doing. I’d not want to be the one foolish enough to go and get in her way. Would you?”

 

 _Especially when the Child Of The Tardis is the one the Old Girl’s set on protecting._ Oswin commented internally. One just shouldn't go about messing with those of the Motherly Instinct variety.

 

“I can look into it.” Kate said finally. “I can probably suggest but I won’t do so outright. If it’s of the Doctor’s personal business then it’s no one else’s.”

 

Oswin nodded contently. “I can work with that.”


	9. Eight.

_**Eight.** _

 

“You’re certainly taking the change in scenery better than I thought you would.” Jenny remarked after Mins had opened her eyes.

 

Mins can’t disagree. Things were happening around her, things she didn’t understand, and yet here she was. Standing in a world so different than the one she knew, eager to take them in instead of questioning them. She thinks of how they’d gotten here. The time travel thing. The experience had made her fingertips go all tingly. Her hearts sped at a pace she’d not known they could. The entirety of her being felt alight with something she couldn’t understand, something not human.

 

The life she’d lived with her grandparents had been a constant day to day simplicity that made that little fact easy to forget. By some miracle she’d been born a full blooded Time Lord instead of just human plus. She’d had a Mum once. A Mum who had loved her and was the best Mum to ever exist. She had a Dad too, one she’d never met but never once did her Mum fail to remind her that he was out there somewhere. That when the time came he’d know of her and that he’d love more than anything else in the universe.

 

It had been a long time since she’d properly thought of her Mum. Of massive curls and warmth and happiness. Of safety and love and _home_. Mins can hardly remember what her mother’s voice had sounded like, the years had dulled that memory, stolen it from her, but she can remember feeling a connection that ran so deep she couldn’t even begin to describe it.

 

She was just a little girl when everything went wrong. It was late in the night when her Mum woke her from her bed and explained to her about the tall man who was waiting in the sitting room. That he was a close friend and he was here to help her, help them. Her Mum had told her she was to be a good girl and that Captain Jack would protect her and keep her safe. She told Mins that when it was time he’d get her to the two people in all the world who would keep her safe and cherished and loved. She told Mins that she loved her and then she had hugged her tight, the way she always did. So tight that it took the breath right out of you.

 

Mins remembers knowing it was the last time she’d ever see her Mum again. She doesn’t know how she could possibly have known that back then but it didn’t matter. She’d been right.

 

She remembers the days that came after. Being separated from her Mum felt like she’d lost a part of herself, a part she’d never gotten back. She’d cry herself to sleep while Captain Jack held her tight, telling her not to worry and that everything was going to be fine. Whenever she’d ask for her Mum he’d get a sad look in his eye but he’d never give her an answer.

 

She thinks about it now and realizes the reason he never answered her is because he wouldn’t have been able to lie to her. He’d been good to her when she was with him. He was her best friend for an entire year. Then, just like her Mum, he was in her life and gone the next. She’d never seen him again.

 

“Hey,” Jenny’s voice brought her away from her thoughts. “You alright?” Mins nodded. A sweet smile spread over Jenny’s face. “You do know you’re going to have to talk to me sooner or later, don’t you?”

 

The girl looked at Mins earnestly, she was trying with everything she had, but Mins couldn’t find it in herself to produce anything other than the ability to breathe just yet. She’d just left her Gran, who had just revealed being sick and would probably need Mins now more than ever, but instead she did what her Mum had. She’d sent her packing with another stranger, away from all she knew and loved. It was too much. It brought back too many losses.

 

“Listen,” Jenny said. “We’re going to visit some people who can help us keep out of situations that would prove disastrous for our well-being. The thing is, they won’t know us yet, or no. Actually, _he_ won’t know you yet. Time travel, pesky little thing, but that said he will help us. You can, under no circumstances, give him any information on how the both of you met. If you alter one detail of his past things could work out very different in his future.”

 

Mins nodded again, thinking she’d hardly be able to tell this person Jenny’s going on about anything important. She can hardly manage to produce any sound to come from within her, let alone a full sentence.

 

“Great. Better now that later.” Jenny gestured for Mins to follow after her. She led them to a building not too far off. The sign on the front entrance said it was a tourist information office. Mins started to go in that direction but Jenny caught her arm and shook her head. She pointed to the Roald Dahl Plass instead.

 

Mins followed Jenny until she stopped abruptly and was then waving to no one in sight.

 

“Hello, Torchwood.” Jenny said. “I’m requesting a meet with the Captain please. Urgent business to discuss.”

 

Mins stared at the blonde beside her, trying to convince herself she’d not heard right. Jenny couldn’t possibly be referring to the Captain that Mins had in mind. It couldn’t be Captain Jack.

 

_He won’t know you yet._

 

“Ladies,” came the voice from somewhere behind them that Mins recognized automatically. Her mouth fell open upon the sight of him, of Captain Jack, walking up to them, a man at his side. “Mind telling me how you came to know of our secret little abode?”

 

Jenny raised a brow. “Our father made a trip here once a very long time ago.”

 

“And exactly who would your father be?” The man beside Jack asked. His hand rested at his hip which made it a poor attempt to hide the weapon he obviously had there.

 

Mins barely registered Jenny’s hand gripping hers and squeezing gently. The gesture was appreciated.

 

“I believe Jack has that knowledge already.” Said Jenny. “He just hasn’t realized it yet.”

 

Jack eyed the two of them suspiciously. “Your father?”

 

“You can call Martha Jones if you’d like.” Jenny suggested. “She was there when I was made. Or Donna, she was too, but then…” she frowned, “You can’t call Donna.”

 

“I’m sorry,” the man beside Jack looked so very lost, “ _What_?”

 

“Oh, God. Not that way!” Jenny laughed. “Sorry. That came out a bit wrong.”

 

Mins kept her eyes on Jack and he seemed to notice because suddenly his eyes were on her. Whatever he saw must have given him something to go on because his suspicion left him entirely.

 

“Ladies,” Jack joined them where they stood. “After you.”

 

Then they were moving downward and being greeted with a whole other world beneath the one they’d just been standing on.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

It had been surprisingly difficult to track down. The Doctor would never have guessed how many planets had shrines and celebrations, religions even, dedicated to messages in a bottle. A specific planet prided themselves on finding people their soul mate. He was tempted to give it a go but he already know who his soul mate was, he didn’t need a bottled up message to confirm it.

 

The Tardis finally lent a hand but only when he’d gotten so frustrated and decided to give up in his search altogether. Amy had asked him to find it and he’d tried. It was hardly his fault he couldn’t find it.

 

He was intent on heading back to Vastra and Jenny and Strax to inform them that he could no longer help them. He had no desire to find out who had sent the unmarked letter to their home. He was officially retiring. The Old Girl had a rumble or two to say about that. She completely disregarded the coordinates he’d put in and by the time he’d got her back under control she had already landed.

 

He looked around the Tardis, angry beyond belief.

 

“You took me to see her die and now you expect me to just go out there again? Taking me where I need to go, eh? I don’t buy it, Old Girl.” He told his empty Tardis. “I don’t care anymore. I’m not going out there, not again. You can’t make me.”

 

The power went out and he chuckled, remembering she’d done this before when she thrust him into a universe that he didn’t belong in. The very one he had to leave empty handed.

 

“Very lovely.” He muttered. “Just wonderful. Shut down on me, yes, that’s completely mature of you. You forget I can manually restart you if I must.”

 

He started on his way out of the console room to do just that only a sturdy wall came down at the entryway, blocking his way out. In all his fury he marched up to the sleek and silver blockage of his Tardis’s new design and his fists came banging against the impenetrable object. All of his anger poured out until he could no longer feel his hands and his knuckles were covered in blood from where the hard surface had broken at the skin.

 

He exhaled, his body sliding down onto the floor. He cried. He doesn’t know for how long but he knows it’s been waiting for this. His grief had waited for this moment to come along. A moment where he was weak and vulnerable and trapped. A moment that refused him the chance to escape what he was constantly running from. To face the ghost hidden in the shadows of his broken heart, the one that haunts him at every corner. He runs and he runs and he keeps on running because if he stopped it would hurt too much. To acknowledge it, that she was gone and she wasn’t coming back. It never seemed matter how fast or how far he’d run. Never once had it stopped hurting.

 

He doesn’t bother wiping away the tears or cleaning the blood his fists are now covered in. It’s too much effort to even stand but he doesn’t have much choice in the matter. The Tardis is quite stubborn when she wants to be.

 

Not much surprised him these days but what he finds waiting for him does just that.

 

“Hello.” The Doctor greets [Ood Sigma](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDcQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftardis.wikia.com%2Fwiki%2FOod_Sigma&ei=evFpU6Y1zpnIBLH_gsAN&usg=AFQjCNE4ZdP82svAFeKty3hXBQYcUAGnMw&sig2=2LpDNcfSh6KVBEgjuK81Cw&bvm=bv.66111022,d.aWw).

 

“We have waited for you, Doctor.” The Ood replies.

 

“Here to tell me my song is ending again? Or perhaps another one of my friends will knock to my demise but this time it’ll be five knocks instead of four.”

 

“You are angry.”

 

The Time Lord laughs and the feeling starts to come back to his knuckles. “I’m tired. I’ve had my time and now I’m done. Let’s get this over with.”

 

“But this story is not over.” Says Ood Sigma. “A new melody has yet to be sung. This song has just begun.”


	10. Nine.

_**Nine.** _

 

* * *

 

 

_He never raised his voice. That was the worst thing... the fury of the Time Lord... and then we discovered why. Why this Doctor, who had fought with gods and demons, why he had run away from us and hidden. He was being kind..._

 

* * *

 

 

Jenny was explaining to Jack’s associates the reasons for their abrupt visit. Jenny wasn’t telling the whole truth, leaving out the technicalities of the Time Lord bits especially, but she held their attention while Jack escorted Mins to the examination room.

 

Jack told her to hop onto the gurney so he could perform some _meaningless but mandatory_ tests. So here they were. Captain Jack with a stethoscope pressed against Mins’s chest. He must have heard them, both her hearts, because when he looks back at her face there is awe and genuine astonishment there instead of the resigned façade he’d hid behind for the first of Jenny’s ramblings.

 

“Two hearts.” Jack states as he pulls away and removes the stethoscope. “You don’t hear that every day.”

 

Mins watches his every movement. She watches him move aside to mark some things down on the chart he’d brought and she watches him walk across to the other side of the exam area to put the stethoscope back in its case. He lingers there for a bit and she knows it’s because he’s unsure of what to say. Of how to act or even begin to ask all the unanswered questions still left to seek. She’s on the exact same island.

 

“Our father.” Jack moved a rolling stool along with him and sat down in front of her. “She said our. As in both of you. I’m assuming that makes you sisters?”

 

Minerva nodded.

 

“Have you ever regenerated?”

 

Another nod.

 

“Does he know?”

 

She doesn’t confirm or deny and that’s answer enough.

 

“Jack.” The woman, Gwen, calls from the railing above.

 

“Sit tight.” Jack tells Mins, a smile accompanying his request before he follows after Gwen. Jenny joins Mins after Captain Jack left the room and hops up to sit beside her.

 

“You alright?” Jenny asks. She doesn’t really expect an answer though, and Mins is grateful. They sit there, companions in silence. It’s nice.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

Ood Sigma looked on the Doctor curiously, his head tilting in assessment. “You do not seem relieved.”

 

The Doctor grimaced. “Hasn’t anyone read the memo? Relief and I have separated. Officially. The divorce settlement has yet to fall through.”

 

“We have waited for you.”

 

“Yes, you said that already.”

 

“It is time to stop waiting.” The ood moves aside, clearing from the Doctor’s path forward.

 

Without the ood blocking his view and taking all of his attention, the Doctor is able to properly take in the sight around him. The atmosphere around him is a fog, misty and thick, though where most fogs are grey and dusky this one is shaded pastel purple. Soft and calming. The water beneath him is not a typical clear either. It's a soft pink with white roses floating above, entwined by their roots. There are endless candles placed a few paces away from each other. They serve as the only source of lighting in every which way that surround him. The way the soft yellow glow spread its light upon the meshing colors offer a lovely contrast. It highlights and joins the soft pink of the water and the purple shades of the fog. It's a lovely scenery and manages to take his breath away, a true beauty to feast your eyes upon. 

 

“Take caution, Time Lord. The solid ground has an end.”

 

The Doctor takes a few hesitant steps forward and takes quick notice to what Ood Sigma is referring to. The solid ground that supports his weight starts receding until it has fully been engulfed by the water it leads to.

 

Through the mist he notices a boat fit for one person only is travelling towards them. He glances back at Ood Sigma, expecting his questions to be met with more questions instead of answers, but the ood is gone. His Tardis is the only presence around him.

 

The boat has no oars nor does it have anyone to navigate it and the Doctor wonders just exactly how he was supposed to get anywhere without either of those things. He steps inside anyway. Once he’s seated safely the boat moves by its own volition. It seems to know where he needs to go so he lets the boat do its job and settles for enjoying the tranquility of the scenery around him.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

Owen Harper leaned further back in his chair. “Well, I still don’t trust them.”

 

“You don’t have to.” Jack says, not bothering to hide his annoyance at Owen's deliberate attempts to annoy him in return. “This isn’t something any of you should be involved in. When Martha gets here-”

 

“What do you expect us to do then, Jack?” Gwen demanded some truth for her, for everyone, because they deserved that much and she knew that he knew it too. “Are you going to disappear and leave us here like you did the last time?”

 

“That was different.” Jack reminded. They went over this already.

 

“You say that about everything that connects to this Doctor of yours.” Owen chimed in, all cheek. “You trust us enough to hire us but you don’t trust us enough to help you, is that it?”

 

“It’s not that I don’t trust you!” Jack insisted. “In that other room,” Jack pointed to the direction that held the Doctor's daughters. “In this office we have two things that could either impact the world for the better or be the making of its destruction. If the  wrong people got hold of them...”

 

He didn't even dare to continue that sentence.

 

“Jack,” Tosh called on his attention softly. Her smile was kind but Jack could see the ambivalence there. “How can two girls time travelling possibly bring forth that sort of damage?”

 

A wry smile appeared on the Captain’s face. “Because you have no idea who you are dealing with.”

 

Gwen comes to stand at his side, silently willing him to look at her. “This devotion and blind faith you have to this Doctor you know only leads me to believe that he is a good man, Jack. Are you telling me my assumptions are wrong?”

 

Jack hurries to clarify. “He _is_ a good man, Gwen. He’s saved countless lives all across time and space. He saved my life, made me a better person. He saved Martha’s life. He’s saved your lives and probably your parent’s lives and their parent’s lives and on and on. He never stops, but I can guarantee you that if those girls come into any danger, if word reaches him – and it will, his enemies will make sure of that – their father will not hesitate to destroy anything in his path to keep them safe. Do you know of any father who wouldn’t?”

 

The room became eerily quiet. Not one of them could argue against that.

 

“There are various accounts of a Time Lord’s fury and I can look them all up if you don’t believe me. I’ve had reliable sources telling me he’s suffered many losses recently.”

 

Martha had informed Jack that Kate Stewart had two encounters with the Doctor not long ago, both with a different face than the one Jack knew. UNIT kept track on him every once in a while, just in case he was needed. It came in handy in the long run. The first time UNIT came upon him he was accompanied by two companions, a redhead and a nurse. The second time he came alone. That was never a good sign. The Doctor never did handle losing people he loved very well.

 

Jack looked at his team, each of them, and hoped they would start to grasp exactly how delicate this situation was and how easily it could turn the Doctor into something so completely unlike himself. Something that would make demons, as well as mankind, run. Jack could promise his team one thing.

 

"His wrath won't be kind this time around."

 

**XXX**

 

The boat came to a halt in the middle of the large lake. The Doctor looked in every which way and found nothing and no one in sight. The water began to ripple and the boat shook from the motion beneath it. Then, as sudden as the ripples began they abruptly stopped. The water flowed gentle and calm once again. It look inviting, cleansing even, so the Doctor dipped his hands into the colored water, wincing as it met the broken flesh gained from the foolish outburst he'd had in his Tardis earlier.

 

With this face he'd been given a calmness that accompanied his anger. It was one thing when he could control it. Times where he could hold it off and tuck it away and keep himself from acting upon his fury. It was the complete opposite when it erupted and blinded him. Conquering over the goodness in him and filling him with a rage that ran endless, enveloping and consuming and shaping him into the destroyer he'd tried so hard to deny seeing the light of day.

 

The water washed away his dried blood. It spread out in swirls. The lovely pink waters joined with the darker shade of crimson. A sight of contamination.

 

A bottle suddenly popped out from beneath the water. It tapped his palm gently once afloat, an announcement of its arrival perhaps. He grasped at it but the wetness of his hand combined with the wetness surrounding the object made it difficult to keep hold of. He squeezed it much too tightly and up it went, out of his hands and into the air. It came down onto the hard wooden surface of the boat and crashed into a million pieces at his feet.

 

The message that had been safely nestled inside the bottle survived. It lay there waiting for him, as it had been for god knows how long. He picked it up with one hand while his other slipped into his jacket pocket to retrieve Amy's glasses. He slipped them on and smoothed the paper out before he began to read.

 

The first two words release a monstrosity of hope that even he can't deny.

 

_Hello, Dad_

 

"Jenny." He says fondly. It was cause for a smile to spread across his face.

 

Two words. That's all it took. Two words and both his hearts felt lighter than before. There was more in the letter. She informed him that she was still out there, alive and hopefully making him proud. The closing sentence gave him all he needed to know.

 

_Catch me if you can_

 

Oh, this was definitely worth the return of 'Geronimo'. The Tardis was alive and ready when he came bursting through her front doors.

 

"Okay, Old Girl," A dozen or so pulls here and a single push there,  common reflexes gained from years of piloting his Tardis. One last lever and she was off. " Geronimo!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just really love exploring the _Dark_!Doctor side of Eleven and I felt that the quote from The Family Of Blood fits perfectly for the tone of this chapter, BUT, the return of Eleven's catchphrase is marking the beginning of all that has yet to come. ;)


	11. Ten.

_**Ten.** _

 

Jenny watched her sister as she slept and was filled with a joy spreading over to both her hearts. She had a sister. She had family. She was loving every second of it.

 

Amy had passed the letters Jenny had given as proof of her claims and then Amy passed them onto her granddaughter. Jenny felt a panic work itself up for all the information that came attached to those papers there was one thing Mins wasn’t meant to see.

 

Of course, Jenny wasn’t meant to either, foreknowledge and all, but she knew the consequences. She knew not to let it cloud whatever it was that needed to happen in order to let things work out the way they were supposed to. The proper way. Oswin had been very clear on those orders and Jenny wasn’t about to let her down, or her father.

 

Captain Jack had prepared them a proper space to hide away and remain undetected in the Torchwood building. Jenny’s redheaded sister remained a quiet presence in her company. Mins mostly ate when she had to, read to pass the time and slept when night time came. Jenny was very concerned for her and knew she had to do something to gain the girls trust. Sooner rather than later.

 

She’s truly thankful that in all the commotion surrounding them it left Mins not too concerned with the letters she’d brought along in her rucksack. That left Jenny with an advantage. She could sneak one specific part of those letters away without Mins knowing and then properly destroy it.

 

Before she did though, against all her better judgment, she read it one last time. Because even she needed hope. She needed faith to guide her in moments she felt overcome with doubt and strength to give Mins when she’d start to question their journey too. She needed a reminder that this would all work out in the end.

 

Their father had written it to Amy himself but at the point in time he’d composed the letter he’d done so with a different face. Jenny grins once her eyes start in on the first part of the letter.

_Amelia Pond,_

_My sweet little Amelia. I realize you have no reason to trust this because my penmanship is different from the last face but I can assure you I won’t take offense to that. This time, anyway. I’ve, quite obviously, regenerated. It was a long while ago actually._

_I missed you and the Roman for a long time, quite helplessly I’m afraid, and I’ve never stopped missing you. It brought me immense suffering to let my mind slip to the times we spent together, running and having adventures and those ridiculous weddings of ours that included the destruction of the entire universe once or twice. Such weddings are hard to top. You were truly amazing, my Ponds, both of you, yet remembering the happy times did nothing to stop my heartache. It did nothing to stop me from lingering in the worst parts of myself. Then this new face came along and I found peace for the first time since I’d lost you all. I now think of the times we had together and they make me swell with happiness._

_I can’t tell you how long it will take or what happens after this moment, the one that is happening right now for you as you read this letter, but I can tell you that we found each other. She’s safe and happy. She’s flying the Tardis as I write. She says her Dad’s too old to be making a fuss over coordinates and to sit down before I induce onto myself another face. I pop up with grey hairs on my head with this face, a mature look now, one to be respected and taken seriously, and all I get in return is bullied for finally taking appearance of a man of my age. It’s truly wonderful._

_I can never thank you enough for taking care of her and loving her because her mother was right. I would have not been safe for her at that point in my life, and I want to thank you for never losing faith in me, especially when you should have. She’s all her mother’s cheek and her spirit and beauty. How I do wish you were here to see it, see us. All of us. Can’t elaborate on that one I’m afraid, spoilers, but you’re clever. I think you can work it out for yourself. I’m so proud of you because you were right too. You and Rory, together, as it should be. You’re my most beloved fairytale and I will love you always. Nighty-night Pond. _

_Your, upgraded version from the baby faced madman you know and love, Raggedy Doctor_

_Oh, and PS, you’d be overjoyed to find I’ve moved past my bowtie phase but you have no say on the Fez. I’m keeping the Fez, deal with it._

 

Jenny really can’t wait for the end of this chapter and the beginning of the next.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

The Doctor figured the three friends he’d promised to help deserved an update of his whereabouts. Vastra would most definitely be pleased about him staying in touch. He relayed as much as he could without giving too much away, leaving a message when no one answered his call.

 

“Quick check in this time, can’t talk for long. Things have gotten complicated, good complicated, and I need to attend to those matters first and foremost. Don’t worry,” he gave a breath of relief, “I’ve got a plan.”

 

Once that was done he started taking educated guesses at what planets his daughter might possibly be drawn to. She’d proved to be more alike to him than he’d been willing to admit and when he finally did she’d been taken from him.

 

Or so he thought.

 

After half an hour of working through possible places to start looking, the phone in his Tardis rang. Instead of moving over to grab it he flipped a switch on the console that served as a handless operator so he could continue moving around the Tardis instead of needing to stay in one place. Cell phones had speaker buttons, his Tardis had full room communication receptors.

 

“Yes?” he answered, typing in a command for the Tardis to look back for any disruptions in space that had been righted with the help of an unnamed source. He’d never made a big fuss to be acknowledged for his helping those who needed it and he knew Jenny wouldn’t care much for that either. He entrusted onto the Old Girl to search through time ranging from the day Jenny came to be in Messaline all those years ago up until this very moment. He would have liked to run a scan for future events but it was never a good idea to gain foreknowledge of things yet to come.

 

“Doctor.” The voice resonated off the walls and echoed throughout the entire room. He recognized the voice immediately.

 

“Kate Lethbridge-Stewart.” The Doctor greeted. “What can I help you with?”

 

He could practically feel the hesitance on her end.

 

“Kate? What is it? What’s wrong?”

 

“Nothing is wrong, Doctor.” Kate assured. “Peculiar is more the word. Intruding might be the second.”

 

“Okay.” The Doctor replied. He wasn’t entirely sure how this would play out and he was ambivalent over the suspense creeping up on him. He decided urging her to continue would make them both feel better, so he did. “Please do go on, I’m all ears.”

 

“I received a phone call the other day. The Tardis phone number was on display so I took the call.”

 

“Right.” The Doctor uttered. “Perhaps a future version of me, haven’t done that yet. To my knowledge, that is.”

 

“It wasn’t you, Doctor.” Kate informed him. “It was a woman.”

 

Hope clutched at him. “Did she give a name?”

 

“No, Doctor. She did not.”

 

“Blimey.” He sighed. “That would have been too easy anyway.”

 

“Doctor, I do maintain that this is none of my business, I told the woman as such but she pleaded me to ask something of you.”

 

The Doctor listened with rapt attention.

 

“Do you have a certain flash drive in your possession?” Kate inquired.

 

His hand fled to rest over his jacket pocket. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

 

“She was very adamant for me to convince you to upload the information it into the Tardis.” Kate relayed. “And that the Tardis would know what to do from there.”

 

The Doctor pulled the small object from his pocket and stared at it wistfully.

 

“There’s one more thing she mentioned.” She continued.

 

The Doctor blinked his focus back to the present. “What was it?”

 

“The Library.”

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

Martha Jones arrived in Cardiff well past midnight. Jack had called claiming urgent business needing to be settled with the utmost discretion. He said he couldn’t elaborate much more over the phone but Martha had more than an inkling of exactly what this urgent business pertained to.

 

When she arrived only Jack was there to greet her. He pulled her into a hug before they walked together, side by side.

 

“Well,” Martha shrugged, “I’m here, Captain. What’s the problem? And is this a night off? I didn’t think Torchwood had such a thing.”

 

Jack smiled but didn’t answer. Instead he asked after her family and if they were okay.

 

Martha looked away. “They’re still coping.”

 

“The year that never was.” Jack shook his head. “Not so good times.”

 

Martha waited expectantly.

 

“Okay. Something happened about a week ago. Something that even UNIT can’t know about. No one can.” Jack beckoned her to follow after him into his office. “I had to erase the memory of all my employees.” He confessed guiltily. “I trust them with my life but I can’t trust them with this. I can’t trust anyone but you. Once you see them, you’ll know what it means and why I had to do what I did.”

 

Martha nodded. “It’s about the Doctor, isn’t it?”

 

Jack smiled sadly. “Isn’t it always?”

 

“I won’t tell a soul.” Martha promised. “You have my word.”

 

“I knew I would.” He told her. “Come with me.”

 

He led her down the corridor, passing the conference room and the examination room. He led her far into the Torchwood base up to a room that had no furniture. It only had a door to step through, a single light on the ceiling and four walls. Jack closed the door and locked it before taking a card out from his pocket and walking across the room. He held the card up to the wall and Martha watched what she knew to be a perception filter fall away.

 

“Oh my god.” She exhaled, recognizing the blonde immediately. “Jenny?”

 

“Martha Jones!” Jenny exclaimed with a wave.

 

“But you’re… you’re supposed to be dead.” Martha looked to Jack then back to Jenny. She moved forward until she was right in front of the Doctor’s daughter. “We saw you die and… but how?”

 

“I am my father’s daughter.” She reminded.

 

“This can’t be.” Still, a smile spread over Martha’s face. “He’s going to be so happy you’re alive.”

 

“He can’t know.” Jack said, walking over to them both but his eyes rested on something else Martha hadn’t noticed.

 

Martha followed his gaze and found another girl was in the room. She had bright red hair that fell over her face as she slept. Martha could put it all together from there. The Doctor not only one daughter, but two.

 

Martha’s heart broke for the Doctor. She knew what it would mean to him, how dear and healing the gift of family would bring him.

 

“You did the right thing, Jack.” Martha said finally. “What do you need me to do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was not overly confident about this one (but then again I never am when it comes to my writing).
> 
> For the sake of clarification, Martha and Jack are referring to the events that took place in the final three episodes Doctor Who Series 3 ( _[Utopia](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Utopia_\(TV_story\))_ , _[The Sound Of Drums](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Sound_of_Drums_\(TV_story\))_ & _[Last Of The Timelords](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Last_of_the_Time_Lords_\(TV_story\))_ ).
> 
> Also, the letter Jenny reread that was addressed to Amy was from our lovely new Doctor, number Twelve. Because Capaldi is going to be brilliant and having to wait this long in order to see him in action is proving to be very, very hard. It'll be worth it obviously but that doesn't change the fact that waiting is no fun at all.ll be worth it obviously but that doesn't change the fact that waiting is no fun at all.


	12. Eleven.

_**Eleven.** _

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

 _ **"**_ But then BANG ZAP! We were off again because Thief had a wedding to dance at. And dancing faster was River Song.

I could smell what she was - she came from me.

Once I taught her how to fly. And once I let her die.   
Once she loved me. Once she shot me.

I could see that all at the same time. I liked her, mothered her.   
One day I would like to teach her to wheeze-groan without me. But the Doctor danced and River danced, and the more they danced the more trouble grew around them.

Something wanted Thief because they hated Thief. They stole River’s mother, they stole River - they made it all so tangled.

Thief and River were looped around each other like wool. He had a scarf once. Long scarf. It smelled of lavender and aluminium. I liked that scarf. It looked good in loops. And sometimes good stories are in loops.  _ **"**_

 ** _-_ The Tardis ** _(The Doctor: His Life And Times)_

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

To take a leap of faith. He _could_ do that. It’s a reasonable ask. Thing is, he’s all out of faith to give. Indications of Jenny still being alive and out there somewhere had been enough to revive a semblance of hope but the Doctor isn’t sure he can reach past that. Hope, he fears, is all he can muster.

 

_The Tardis would know what to do._

 

And didn’t she always? Aside from how painful the last few days had been the Old Girl had done just that. She knew and so she gave him what he’d needed.

 

In the end it wasn’t hope or faith that prompted the Doctor to upload the contents of John Smith’s flash drive into the Tardis. It was something long known to him of his beloved blue box. He could trust her, so he did.

 

“There you are, Old Girl.” The Doctor patted the console when the upload was complete. “Do what you must.”

 

What followed was a reply full of glee and warmth and resounding with all that made her home.

 

“You beautiful idiot, I do what needs to be done, always.”

 

It seems something of the impossible keeps turning up these days. He wouldn’t dare complain of it though because there she was. The luminous form of [the woman the Tardis had embodied once](http://oi58.tinypic.com/2rzrqxe.jpg). The body of the human Idris was only a glimmer of warm yellow and orange outlines, no solid person, no true substance, but she _was_ there.

 

“Hello,” the Tardis greeted, “Thief.”

 

“Is this what’s ahead of me then?” the Doctor neared the image of his blue box in human form. “Surprises of the loveliest kinds, because I must warn you, I could get used to this.”

 

The Tardis used Idris’s face and features to give him the loveliest of smiles he’d seen in his most recent years.

 

“Oh,” she sounded absolutely delighted, “must I really say it? Can I?”

 

The undertones of her meaning were clear so he prompted her on with a wave of his hand.

 

“Spoilers.” The Tardis laughed. She was a whimsical echo. “So far behind, Thief. Always so far behind. Catch up, catch up, you must, you must.”

 

The Doctor grinned, enjoying her seemingly senseless rambling.

 

“I knew you’d catch up, you always do, always and completely. You said.” She reminded with a nod of her head. “And when you ran from her in the beginning you were only ever running toward her. Silly Thief.” The Tardis chastised, moving around her own floors and leaving a trail of golden billowy sparks at every turn. “You ran to every inch of the universe, away and away, and then you always came back to me. To home. My parts are hers. We both feel like home, don’t we?

 

“And she sounded like me! Like me without the breaks on.” The Tardis danced her way around, Idris’s dress swaying and swaying. “You heard, didn’t you? When you knew, you must have! That’s why she insisted so very long ago. The brakes, she said, and then you made Me sounds.”

 

Ah, yes. How could he forget his first glimpse of River’s mad entrances? She jumped out of a bloody spaceship and had her red heels hanging about the console like she’d owned the place. She was very rude that day too, didn’t even ask him if she could drive she’d just gone and done it. And Amy was no help in the matter. Took to her daughter with open arms, she did. They hadn’t known then. They’d had no concept of just who River Song would come to be. _Theirs._

 

“She didn’t want you to hear, not yet, now when your eyes said who are you and your heartbeats didn’t call her name. And if you heard her then you’d have known, then you’d have known.”

 

The Tardis gave her familiar wheezing-groan and he can recall with vast detail the feel of his wife. River’s spirit and cheek was all Pond, her hearts beat brave and true like the Centurion, but her skin was like the Mother who’d completed her. River’s skin felt like home because the Tardis stitched herself in since the beginning. The Tardis had, in many ways, given him the human (plus) personification of home.

 

“Pretty One!” His Tardis exclaimed suddenly. She seems surprised by how the words tumbled from her without prior intention. The Doctor rolled his eyes. Rory being named as the Pretty One was something he never even attempted to get into.

 

“I sang of her song to the Pretty One.”

 

His Tardis says _sang_ and _song_ and what she means is _words_.

 

“You said, Rory said you kept repeating…”

 

“The only water in the forest is the river.” Her face lit up with such affection.

 

“Did you know all along? At my first, her-”

 

“Last,” she let loose a mother’s wail and dimmed before his eyes. With her energy restoring back into the machine her wail faded to a tremulous wobble.

 

“Alas,” he uttered. “Time is up, yes?”

 

“There are firsts and there are lasts.” Her voice was losing its frequency. “The first time we spoke was then, and John Smith has given us our last. There can never be one without the other.”

 

The Doctor placed his hands at the edge of the console for support. Once his Tardis was back inside her proper skin all she’d be able to converse with would be satisfied rumbles and protesting groans.

 

“You are alive.” She had become devoid of light and of color. Fading away right in front of him. “And yet you are sad. Always so sad. Nothing is over until it’s over and alive should only be sad when it’s over.”

 

“But isn’t it?” the Doctor pressed. He could not bear having his hopes attaching to River again. He could not suffer being lied to. 

 

Even at the start they were over. He and River had been destined for endings at every beginning. He'd known from that exact instant, with only one whisper, that he'd never survive her. He didn’t know who she was and the most infuriating part of it all, besides being faced with an inconceivable future with this woman, one who knew his name and who would lay claim to both his hearts, was that he didn’t love her then but something deep inside told him that he already did. He had loved her since that first meeting, without sound reason and full of guilt and dread, he'd loved her.

 

A terrible silence fell over the Doctor and his blue box. The Tardis slowly raised her fading hands, examining them with a passionate curiosity. She then focused her attention back to her Thief.

 

“And of course it’s over.” He muttered, heartbroken.

 

“Not even nearly.” She echoed, her voice carried away like ripples. “So many loops, Thief. Not over. Not even nearly over.”

 

She faded from his sight. Throughout the rest of the night he keeps talking, keeps conversation as if she was still there to answer back. And she does. Her voice is a wheeze, sometimes a groan.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

That Doctor had finally done what he should’ve done a long time ago. If Oswin could have a word with him she’d give him a proper scolding. She’d scold his ear off because, bloody hell, it’s about damn time. S’not like the Shadows in the Library keep finding ways to get through firewalls all for want of adding Professor River Song onto the menu or anything, right?

 

All in all, preparing the proper programming takes far too many days and that many more nights. Then comes the uploading and decoding and rerouting and getting it up and running. Honestly, keeping the Shadows at bay never used to be a preference and the fact that life has come to that is just downright sad.

 

Things eventually came together as they needed to be and that was the only part that mattered. River Song would come to no harm while Oswin played her part, and boy, did she have a big one.

 

“Well, everything’s set. Just need to add a little more _me_ into it.”

 

Jenny’s face comes to mind and she’s got red flag signals going off in her head and an urgent need get the hell out of the Library. She's a big ball of jittery nerves, mostly because she hadn’t exactly shared this last part of the process with the woman she loved. Jenny would be extremely miffed about the lack of communication and Oswin only hopes she'll be around long enough to take the fallout, to say _sorry_ and _please forgive me_  and _I love you_. Not even Jenny could have talked her out of this. Nothing could or would have swayed Oswin from this. It was what she was meant to do.

 

 _Such a clever girl, my Jenny._ _So lovely and kind and mine, all mine._

 

The heart she’d gained from knowing Jenny grew heavy, and not for the first time of her existence had her duties seemed so utterly unfair. She wishes to stay, wishes she had the ability of free will but she doesn’t. Not with this. Her programming was created for this purpose, her automatic setting would kick in if anything were to disturb this process. This happening was nonnegotiable. For goodness sake, she’d not even known of what negotiable consisted of before Jenny’s came in and inquired Oswin to voice her thoughts. She'd not really thought about much, she'd just do as Cal bid her.

 

Before Jenny she’d functioned for one purpose and one purpose only. It was all numbers and the watching, always with the endless watching. Never once had it occurred to Oswin that she didn’t properly exist. She was part of the cleanup system, part of the computer. She knew nothing of thought or questioning her duties. She knew nothing of skipping out for something called fun and feeling and, the best one, the thing called love.

 

Oh, but Jenny came along and for the first time Oswin became aware and gained the ability to perceive. Because of Jenny she’d felt more solid, more real. _Alive_. Because of Jenny she’d evolved beyond the computer and become something more than sentient. In time she could touch and hold and feel but it was never permanent. She could only sustain such solidity for so long before she started ghosting again.

 

Oswin’d been so lucky to have met her. So privileged to fall in love with her and blessed with the miraculous happening that Jenny fell back. It was simple to fall in love with her. Jenny was beauty and life and knowledge was always so different when coming from Jenny’s lips than from the operative memory mode built in with her design. It’s quite inconceivable that one could fall in love with a computer entity. That Jenny, someone who was solid and alive and _real_ ,  never thought of Oswin as a part of the computer. Instead Jenny saw a being who needed a nudge in the right direction to learn how to simply _be_.

 

 _You are human._ Jenny would whisper on those nights they'd spend together, the nights where Oswin was able to sustain her impermanent figure. One that could touch and be touched. _You are human_  said again and again and again before the inevitable came and Oswin ghosted. For all whiles that Jenny was near Oswin could almost believe that it was true.

 

“I am human.” Oswin whispered one last time, for her precious Jenny. “My clever girl, please…”

 

Oswin bites on her bottom lip, containing the sob she very much wants to let free. And she knows these humanistic features, these tears on her cheeks are images that are conjured solely from perception of those thoughts. They are the equivalent of a drawing on a page. They aren’t real, they never are when she’s an image rather than a solid entity. They _feel_ real though, that’s all that matters.

 

“Remember me.” She begs.

 

Oswin feels her physical image start to disintegrate. The pixels that make up her visual appearance disjoint in bits and slowly they fade, downloading directly into River Song’s desolate consciousness.

 

Oswin 27810. The first and only model created from the Lux security software program _I.M-P0SS1BL(3)*TM_

 

For she’s the Keeper Of The Forest and the only water in the forest is the river.


	13. Twelve.

_**Twelve.** _

 

They’d spent a very long time stashed away in the hidden area Jack had prepared for them, Martha and Jack giving all their time between their work and personal life to devise getting them away while avoiding unwanted attention. Jenny turned out to be a chatty one and Mins was grateful. Her sister filled the silence that she couldn’t fill at first.

 

Mins grew sick of the room they’d been confined to very early on. She’d never been one to sit still for long back in New York but now the restlessness seemed a different unbearable than the one she’d been used to. Something inside of her had the thirst for more, so much more. To go further, past, and beyond the reasonable. To run and to never look back.

 

Still, even leaving the base to get some sunlight was out of the question. She and Jenny were permitted to wander Torchwood after Jack’s team was long gone and Jenny took every opportunity to expose her to the many new things the future held as well as making sure she was caught up with the happenings of the past. There was an awful lot of _showing off_ on Jenny’s part.

 

She’d soaked it all in like a sponge, a yearning had apparently been stitched deep and demanded to be fed of anything and everything the world had to offer. The growing fascination for all Jenny knew and shared so selflessly left a bond forming whether Mins wanted to admit it or not. Soon the two were so lost conversing over the mechanics of time travel and Jenny’s recollections of their father and when Jenny told of how she came to be in the world Mins was positively enthralled with the tale. The specific part of being a soldier stirred up something else too. She found herself asking Jenny if she could teach her a thing or two about that. It didn’t take long for Mins to pick it up. That physical strength in her craved the rush, the excitement. Loved the chase. Jack took over when it came to firearms.

 

“You’re a great shot, kid.” Jack appraised after every lesson.

 

It always left Jenny breathless with laughter. “Oh, you’re your mother’s daughter alright.”

 

When Jack and Martha finally did come to them with a plan it hardly seemed like any time had passed at all.

 

Martha held in her hands what looked to be necklaces only they weren’t anything of the sort. For starters, they didn’t have a sparkly chain to hang around your neck, they had a thin piece of leather that tied up at the ends. There was no pretty jewel hanging from it, there was only a pair of rusty old keys.

 

“So,” Martha handed one of each to both Jenny and herself. “All you have to do is put this on and you don’t take it off, not for anything, you go that?

 

Jenny took on her most serious of expression and said, “Crystal clear, ma’am.”

 

Mins nodded, quickly doing as Martha instructed.

 

“They’ll help hide you in plain sight.” Jack told them.

 

“Saved our lives once.” Martha divulged, her voice grown heavy, overcome by whatever it was that obviously caused her an immense amount of pain.

 

“That they did.” Jack agreed softly, laying a hand on Martha’s shoulder. She smiled up at him, thanking him without having to say a word.

 

He used to be able to do that with Mins. Back when an entire year passed of him being all she had and keeping her safe. Read her like a book, he once could. Jenny had also stressed to her the dangers foreknowledge could bring, how one little slip of the tongue could erase the cycle of events from then to now.

 

_You change one thing, you change everything._

 

“They’ll help keep some of those unsavory characters off of your trail _but_ ,” Jack warned, “it won’t keep them off forever. They’ll buy you enough time to get away before anyone can track you down.”

 

Jenny took to examining the key before taking a guess. “Perception filters, yeah?”

 

Jack seemed impressed. “You’re a sharp one.”

 

“Learned from the best.” Jenny smiled brightly.

 

“Right then.” Martha seemed to have gathered herself together and was back to business. “The vortex manipulator, it is Jack’s, isn’t it?”

 

Jenny send a knowing look Mins’s way and offered Martha no more than a nod.

 

“This is obviously Jack’s first time coming in contact with the both of you so I think it’s safe to assume you play a part in his future.” Martha looked from Jenny to Mins before going on. “That means the first thing we have to do is get you two out of Cardiff. With both devices active and being in such close proximity to the rift, the energy spikes would go through the roof. It would bring us unwanted attention and we cannot have that.”

 

Mins had to give it to Martha Jones. The woman was very clever. She knows now that, like Jack, she can trust Martha to the ends of the universe.

 

Martha continued. “I’ve procured a vehicle to get you both to London. I’m afraid, once there, our hands are tied.”

 

“And that’s where I pick up.” Jenny supported. “Got it.”

 

The girls packed their small amount of belongings in silence, Mins letting herself face the fact that she’d not see Jack again for a while at least. Whether that was in his past or hers, she wasn’t sure, and Jenny wouldn’t say, what her sister did say was _Goodbye is never truly goodbye. Not with our lot._ Mins took comfort in that.

 

“Thank you.” Mins said to both Martha and Jack when both were seeing them off safely.

 

“You girls take care of yourselves.” Martha told them, “And good luck.”

 

She hugged Jenny first and then Mins was next.

 

“And you,” Martha’s eyes softened when they rested on Mins.

 

That was another thing. Jenny had been great and wonderful and so much had come of their relationship since leaving New York, but there had been one thing Mins couldn’t share with her sister. They were of the insecurities that never went away no matter how her own Mum and her grandparents had insisted her father would love her no matter what. Jenny could hear of her worries and offer all her comforts, no doubt, but she would never truly be able to understand what Mins felt or relate. Their father knew of Jenny, but he knew nothing of her, and that difference mattered more than Minerva could bare.

 

It ending up being Martha who sought her out and asked of what was bothering her. Mins was reluctant to even speak of it but Martha outright guessed. She told Mins she’d been where she was once. Feeling like she didn’t measure up to what she felt she should be for someone else, when all along, she had always been enough just as she was.

 

Martha hugged Mins tight. “He’s going to be so very glad to meet you.” She promised in a whisper. “And I reckon,” She pulled back, “your dad, being how he is, mad and ridiculous and all the rest, he’s loved you long before either of you come to know each other, he’ll just finally be able to realize it that’s all.”

 

They were all set to go, bags in the boot and Jenny starting the car when Jack and Martha were suddenly beckoning Mins to roll down the side window.

 

“Before I forget,” Jack smiled, “when all is said and done, you drag that dad of yours back here. I want to see the look on his face. Well, and the new face. He’s bound to have a new one by now.”

 

“Yes,” Martha maintained. “All that the Captain said.”

 

They promised.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

It was bright where Oswin went. Very bright. When she focused, she recognized it was a room, and on the far right a woman was lying in a bed, a recovery bed. Her red hair was a mess, sticking to her forehead and skin pale and clammy. She looked so exhausted yet the most extraordinary smile was spread across her face. She was cooing something in her arms. The closer Oswin got the more she heard.

 

“Melody.” The woman told the bundle in her arms. “That’s my best friend’s name, you know? She’s going to be your Auntie. Auntie Mels. Oh, she’ll lose her mind over it at first but then she’ll be so protective over you, you’ll hardly ever have a moment to yourself, I can promise you that.”

 

Oswin knows now what this is. Demon’s Run. That means…

 

“Have you a name yet?”

 

Oswin gasped at the voice that came from behind her. She found a woman standing there, one of her eyes covered with an eye patch.

 

“Gods,” Oswin walked closer to the creepy eye patch lady. “What’s with the wardrobe on this one?”

 

“Come now, Amelia. We’re giving you the courtesy to name your child, the least you could do is be grateful.” Eye patch lady neared the bed.

 

“You get the hell away from me and _my_ daughter!” Amy Pond snarled, pressing her newborn closer to her body.

 

“Yeah. You heard the mum.” Oswin commented. “Bugger off, _patchy_.”

 

The woman sighed and abruptly turned, eyes set on Oswin. “Take her.”

 

Before Oswin could truly panic, the three guards headed her way went right past her and stood on either side of Amy Pond’s birthing bed. Two held Amy away while the other forcefully took Melody Pond from her mother’s arms. The new mother was screaming and crying and begging, struggling uselessly against the two holding her down. Melody’s cries were just as desperate as her mother’s. It was such a horrible thing to see.

 

“You might want to change your attitude, Amelia Pond.” The horrible eye patch lady said.

 

“You can’t do this!” Amy cried, breaking down into herself. “You can’t, you can’t…”

 

“You wouldn’t want this to be the last time you see your precious little girl, would you?”

 

Amy’s head snapped up, eyes terrified.

 

“I know, I know.” Said the horrible woman. “Perhaps next try will be better. And if not, well,” she smiled, “It’s only goodbye.”

 

The woman’s heels clicked on her way out. Amy Pond collapsed back onto her birthing bed, suffocated by the grief that overcomes a parent losing their child.

 

The next Oswin knew, she was in another setting. The same blaring white around them, only this time Amy was bent over what looked like a futuristic crib.

 

“… and not even an army can get in the way.” Amy smiled down at her baby, her hands caressing Melody’s tiny little fingertips. “He's the last of his kind. He looks young, but he's lived for hundreds and hundreds of years. And wherever they take you, Melody, however scared you are, I promise you, you will never be alone. Because this man is your father. He has a name, but the people of our world know him better… as”

 

“The Last Centurion.” Oswin said in unison to Mummy Pond, knowing very well the many accounts of the legendary warrior throughout history. Myth or not, he always managed to pop up one way or another. Oswin has a feeling that’s more River adding such tidbits into actual history. A girl did have to brag about her dad one way or another. Who was Oswin to say if creating an entire living legend of him was a bit much or not?

 

She dropped into a ship next.

 

“Okay, jeez. Warn a girl before a change of scenery!” Oswin complained.

 

It continued like so, moving bit by bit from the memories in River Song’s mind, one after the other. Oswin can barely stand most of it, especially when it came to monsters and men conditioning a very scared little girl, many a time by force, but all Oswin can do is suffer through them, not able to help and not able to get away. She’s going to be strung along until she reaches the end.

 

She hopes the end has a reset button, because she’s not sure she can survive any replays.


	14. Thirteen.

_**Thirteen.** _

 

River Song does not remember being River Song. She does not remember the name River Song nor the life once lived. The images that appear out of nowhere do not compute. There are sound and..  the… what are they called? The… people. Yes, people. And the sounds are words, yes. Yes, they are called words, but they make no sense. They are foreign sounds and foreign people. Footsteps make no sense either. Footsteps that sound louder that these words in all these images. The footsteps do not belong to a person so where do they come from? They seem to be going forward, moving along with these images, but they are not part of them.

 

There is no recognition, there is no connection, and there is no River Song. Cal had told the Doctor of how the Shadows had gotten inside, how they’d gotten to River. Cal had no other choice than to expel the woman who had become her mother out of her virtual world in order to save her from being erased forever.

 

In many ways, River Song had been downloaded from the Library. The copy Cal saved was finally restored and she reads as _incomplete_.

 

**XXX**

 

 

The first thirty-seven years Minerva was to spend with her sister started in the year of 1951. Going such a long way back, Mins felt the reunion with their father was becoming less and less likely. Loss of hope came but Jenny was always there, relentless in her promising, reassuring that they would get there, that the day _would_ come. That she would get Mins to that point in time.

 

Jenny had made use of their first years together. She taught her younger sister of everything she knew. Minerva learned of time and space. She learned of their father, and her mother’s, future and past, their beginnings and their lasts. Jenny explain the technicalities of how long their wait would be compared to his, the difference of it. Their father would be searching in the future. In his timeline it would only be a short while whereas their waiting would be considerably longer.

 

“But how can that be?” Minerva questioned. “If we were to carry on, 100 years let’s say, how would it not be that long for him as well?”

 

“Because our hypothetical 100 years, as you say, would be from our end.” Jenny told her. “Our wait will be long, very, very long. When we catch up to our father we can choose the exact date and time of our arrival in his life, given the coordinates are accurate. If we wanted to, we could set those coordinates to take us straight to him a day after we’d left New York.”

 

“Then why don’t we?” Mins just couldn’t grasp it. Why would they waste this time?

 

“You have so much to learn, Mins.” said Jenny. “We may have all of time and space at our fingertips but with that flexibility comes rules we must follow. Some can be ignored. Father started such rebellions when he took off from Gallifrey. Timelines, for instance, pesky little things those are. Like I told you before of how you change one thing and you can change everything, remember?”

 

And Mins does.

 

“There are things called paradoxes. They must be avoided. If we were to come in contact with each other too early or too late we’d have a very big problem. Your mum knew that better than anyone.”

 

“She did?”

 

“You Ponds.” Jenny said fondly “The waiting runs in the family.”

 

It was in the year 1972 that a man named Billy Shipton came into their lives and his wife Sally along with him. Mins learned that Billy, like Jenny and herself, was not of this time either. He’d arrived from the future in the year 1969. He lived a different life before his new one and had known a different Sally. Sally Sparrow, her name was. The story Jenny relayed of this Billy Shipton was one Minerva could not shake off for months. It wasn’t the first she had heard of such horrible creatures. Amy and Rory had been victims of such horrible creatures themselves and, unfortunately for Billy Shipton so had he.

 

The Shiptons and their children became an adopted family of sorts. The girls spent holidays and birthdays with them. Presence of others in their life made it easier. Jenny became the most important figure during those first years. Minerva thinks her sisters had been a part of her far before she’d even known of her. She always would be.

 

Time passed and it passed quickly. Too quickly. Departing of the lives they had built and the friendships they had acquired Minerva experienced for herself just how hard it was to leave those who had taken up a place in her hearts.

 

Several years later Minerva would remember that taste akin to what her father had to bear parting with his own companions.

 

That first hardship however… it could never have prepared her for the loss that awaited in her own personal future.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

The unknown watched the man with the bowtie. There will be no memory of this. Bowtie hadn’t even taken notice of eyes following after him.

 

Stealth is what he had now. Such a trait would have proved useful in many past situations, but then, he should have expected a face better representing of his age would come with limbs and qualities of such maturities. They make for wiser choices, smarter choices. He’s got the face of a grown up this time around. He’s been a bit too smug with it ever since.

 

Seeing his past face though, it does bring back a longing. He remembers the exact point his Eleventh is at. He’d been searching for one person, for one daughter, never expecting that there would be more, so much more he will find. Oh, the joy of made all his suffering worth it. There had been devastation. Of both he remembers well. That remembrance will be a current hardship for his daughter, the daughter they had both left, no matter how much he’d not wanted to.

 

He knew of the weight she’d carry when she woke. The world had burned beneath her fingertips. Countless lost to the fires.

 

It had been dangerous. When his daughter told him of what he would do it was set in stone. He remembers looking to his daughter and why she would dare to tell him, how she should never have told him. He had been under the impression she knew of such revelations to be dangerous.

 

_“You shouldn’t have… that’s a spoiler Mini. I’ve yet to do that. Foreknowledge.”_

 

_“Why do you think you’re there in the first place?”_

 

_“But… but once one knows what is coming there is no changing it!”_

 

 _“You aren’t meant to_. _They all burned, I watched them. I felt two steady hearts when mine own were not. We aren’t that different, you and I. That fire left me with nothing but fire and rage. Mine would be the fury. It almost was.”_

 

A warm hand entwined with his own, bringing him back from the happening of today. “You did what you had to, my love. You were there, as she said. You did your part.”

 

“No,” he said softly. “No.”

 

“You never did elaborate our being here. Does this help you? Did it?”

 

“Not one bit.”

 

His wife blinked at him. “Then why are we here?”

 

“It’s the chin!” he waves a hand in the direction of his past self. “I’ve never really seen it from the outside before. One must take one’s opportunities, dear.”

 

Rolling of eyes. “You daft man. Of course no one would be more voyeuristic of his own self than you are.”

 

 

His touches are a bit more worn this time around. There’s a roughness that comes with and aged man’s skin compared to a younger man’s and yet the tap to the tip of her nose is just the same as it was back then.

 

“You want to get a proper look then? By all means don’t let me stop you. Go get an eye poked out.”

 

“Ha.”

 

They quieted, watching the man he used to be until that man decided there would be no lead to follow. He wonders if she misses him. She loves him, any face and every face, but that face had been her first face. He knows how the first sears onto a pair of hearts.

 

“Not one line.” He heard his wife say, bringing him back to the present. And he nodded.

 

“I’ve never dared, dear. I don’t plan to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we have Twelve making the second cameo in what may be various appearances in this AU. I say 'may' because I've not really made up my mind yet if I should include him in future chapters. Not because he's not awesome and I kind of need Capaldi as the Doctor since twelve years ago but I don't know if he will fit with the story. Then again timey-wimey does mean past and future glimpse. 
> 
> Any thoughts on if I should keep him recurring in some future chapters???
> 
> This was also way too short. I've been lacking in inspiration but I feel you deserve an update anyway.


	15. Fourteen.

_**Fourteen.** _

 

“Aranisia Porte Lon.” Jenny introduced the planet they were currently afoot. “Home of the Aranis.”

 

Mins decided to state the most obvious trait of this alien race so far. “They’re red.” She said.

 

“Quite impressive. Gold star for you.” Jenny praised, a light sarcasm attached to it.

 

“They look like the female we met.” Remembered Mins. “The one singing in that rubbish event you dragged me to.”

 

“The Diamond is a proper legacy in all of time!” balked Jenny. “There is not a crevice of the universe where that place isn’t worshiped at some point or another.”

 

“It was a _bore_.” Mins drawled, cheeky as ever. “I’ll take fish and chips any day.”

 

They’d ended up sitting on the mountainside of Aranisia Porte Lon. It rotated around the planet. You could sit at the edge, legs dangling over if you wish, and watch the planet and their species go on with their lives down below. There was a slate of mist that kept whomever was on the edge from tipping over. If you swayed forward it would only sway you back up. It was almost like riding a merry go round with a bouncy little safety net to keep you more secure and less dead. Somehow, they’d gotten to a subject Mins had never questioned before.

 

“Well,” Jenny’s smile was such a bashful thing. Mins couldn’t even believe such a smile was on her sister’s face. Her very confident, unflinching, and indifferent to scrutiny of any kind sister.

 

“Out with it.” she bumped her shoulder into her sister’s, eager to know just what in the whole cosmos could make Jenny look so bloody flustered.

 

“Her name is Oswin.” Jenny confided. “She’s like… oh, she a whole world. A whole separate universe. All of everything and anything, she knows. I could stop for her, you know?” Jenny confessed. “I could stay still. I love the running around, the saving universes. It’s in my blood, as in yours, but I could stop for that one. White picket fence and everything. I would do it in a heartbeat.”

 

Mins finds herself perplexed with such a prospect. It felt like such a short while ago since they’d left their other life and their adopted family the Shiptons but already a year had passed. A year of all sorts of shenanigans. A year arguing with Jenny to teach her how to fight as a soldier might. She’d been reluctant up until Mins reminded her of the facts. Her own mum had monsters coming for her before she’d even been born. She was the daughter of the Doctor and River Song. Of all she’d heard and learned so far the best weapon to own was herself.

 

Jenny had taken her to planets and civilizations not yet grown, once they’d helped when there was no one else willing to lend a hand. She’d seen the birth of a new race, the lot of them joining the universe and feeling pride at finding out how far they’d come since then. Then there was that god awful incident in Switzerland in the early 1950s. She’d forgotten to put the new mobile she’d finally mastered on silent. Unfortunately, she’d also not changed the ringtone that some knobhead had chosen for a ringer. And so it went off. It rang out into the universe near a bloke with an accordion. Mins spent the last four months mortified with having single handily helped the Chicken Dance come to life.

 

Then, very recently, they’d managed to save a world all on their own. And she felt herself getting better at it. At everything. She felt herself able to think on her own two feet. Instead of still learning, she was knowing. She was becoming an equal to her sister, finally. And so Jenny talking about stopping? No more running? No space? Mins can’t imagine a life like that. Not anymore. But then, she’d never even considered another person being able to make someone else feel that way.

 

It was so very foolish that it hadn’t occurred to her before. She’d been around two people who adored and loved each other more than anything, her grandparents, and yet she’d never entertained the idea of such a thing extending to her. She’d just accepted that perhaps Time Lords didn’t work that way. Yet here Jenny is. Adoring and loving someone just as her Gran and Granddad had.

 

“Why don’t you then?” Mins wondered aloud. “If you… if you feel like you do for her why would you keep away from her?”

 

Jenny cast her eyes downward. She struggles to find the answer to Mins’s question until she decides she’s not going to answer. She didn’t needed to anyway. It wasn’t hard to work it out. It was downright obvious really. Jenny had dedicated her life to help Mins along for many years now. Jenny was choosing her.

 

Mins wants to say sorry. She wants to tell Jenny to go, to be with this girl she loves, but she knows Jenny won’t leave her. She loves too much and so she’s completely selfless that way. There would be no easy way to deter her from her own decisions and Mins would never try to. She’d never try to talk her sister against staying with her. It’s selfish, she knows that, but she wouldn’t wish it any different. It was Jenny and her against the world and there was still so much left to see.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

Minerva placed the tiny torch she’d brought in her mouth. She had to have both hands free to rummage through the darkness and find the router that connected to the energy source of the ship. If she can find the main supply room she can find what out this so called energy source really is.

 

She’d not been looking for this. A trip to the future seemed good fun, they always do. They’d been hoping from place to place faster than they’d ever had to before, her and Jenny. Those unsavory characters Captain Jack had warned them about did indeed start to pay attention to the trails they left behind. It left many unanswered questions and Mins has a feeling the ones looking for them won’t stop until they got all the answers the wanted.

 

So they’d ended up here. On a ship full of occupants traveling from one light-year to the next, floating in any direction space was willing to take them. The ship could have been a small country in the grand scheme of things. They were mostly human beings by the looks of it and they were far along in the future. They’d been maintaining so long out in space by reproducing, as humans do, survival and all of that good stuff.

 

There had been something called ‘precious cargo’ onboard too. That turned out to be sweet, lovely little Oods. It wasn’t long before she and Jenny worked out they were on a captive ship, Oods and people alike, and there would definitely be no sweet dreams coming for when this whole mess of a situation was over.

 

The torch kept flickering on and off. Mins grimaced, twisting and turning through the pipes arond the underground boilers until she reached the back rooms in the corner, hidden far better than it should be. It was in that adjacent room that she finally got proper sight of them. Rows and rows of compartments under lock and key. Opening the metal clasps hadn’t been too hard. Digital passcodes. A quick rewrite was all it needed. She flipped the metal up and found that the wires that should have been there weren’t wires at all. They were…

 

“Oh, just my bloody luck.” A voice, deeply gruff, startles her enough to drop the torch. The entire room goes dark. She’s down on her knees to search for it when whomever it was that snuck up on her flicked on the lights. The sudden brightness blinds.

 

“Hello, right,” knuckles then come tapping against her forehead. “I’m knocking, there’s nothing in there, hmm? Surprise, surprise.”

 

Mins shoves his hand away from her and stands, blinking furiously and willing her eyesight to focus. This stranger just waltzes in and mocks her as if this is a time for jokes. Honestly…

 

“You’re not supposed to be down here.” The man wearing the black leather jacket said. He had the audacity to point a finger at her as if he were her dad and she was in need of a good scolding. She’d tell him just where he could put that scolding alright. “Are you looking to get yourself killed because that’s exactly wh-”

 

He stopped talking. By the way his eyes widen in recognition and horror she assumes he must have seen what she had moments ago. He moves forward, completely losing care for her at all and instead tearing open the rest of the metal clasps away and revealing the terrible things hidden away inside.

 

“All of them.” He said, breathless. The disbelief and dread she’d felt at first glance is evidently his first reaction too. Well, at least she doesn’t have to worry he’s fighting for the opposite side. That would have been annoying.

 

“This is wrong. I don’t…” he shook his head and started pacing, “No. No, how does this just happen? How can a ship travelling through and through go unnoticed with these… jesus. There must have been checks, there has to have been.”

 

He’s mostly just speaking aloud, not to her. She may as well not even be in the room.

 

“They’d never allow this to go on. This is inhumane. These are-”

 

“Lifelines.” Mins finished. The man jumped at her voice. He set his eyes on her, looking her up and down as if she’d been the one to pop up out of nowhere and spook him out of his skin.

 

“That’s right.” He nodded, turning back to the savagery in front of them. “The ship’s being powered by the vitality of a host, a living breathing thing. To harvest energy like that… it’s…. it’s just not done. Not anywhere.”

 

“And they’re using the Oods.”

 

“Yes.” He affirms. “This isn’t human DNA.”

 

“Yet.”

 

He looks ready to argue against her but even he knows she’s got the right of it.

 

“It’s a coward’s choice, really. Using the Oods. They live to serve.” He explains. “In the wrong hands they have no choice. They will not go against orders they are given. They won’t scream, they won’t protest – not to us. They’d suffer through a lifetime of silent torture if that was what was commanded of them. Consciously and with every last breath.”

 

“But if it they’re in torture, why wouldn’t they? There has to be something in there than can-”

 

“They serve.” The man said, the despair of him radiated so fiercely. His voice sounded stained with the weight of lives and his eyes, blue, so blue, they are pale ghosts looking back at the universe, devoid of any light, of any hope. Mins is enthralled by how his presence seems to shift the very atmosphere than surrounds him. It projects like a sharp edge. The abrasive scorn causes one to flinch with just a look. It’s coupled with a devastating loneliness. He suffocates the room.

 

Now that the lights were on Mins took a proper look around. She was pleased to see something that would come in handy.

 

“Right,” she moved over to the junk thrown at the corner of the room where a tattered sonic blaster had been tossed. “Haven’t seen these one of these in a long time.”

 

“And just what are you going to do with that?” the man demands.

 

“Serve.” Is her answer. She thinks she sees a tensely bit of appraisal in his eyes but she doesn’t linger to confirm. She’s got to find Jenny. They’re going to fix this and their next stop will be in the 20th century because Mins is sure of one thing: she has had enough of the future for one millennium.

 

They don’t really make a plan of anything. He goes one way, she goes another. She has a run-in with Jenny, they _do_ make a plan before parting ways again. By the time it’s all over Jenny has wandered off to the main station in hopes of finding a way to get all these people and the Oods back to a safe place. That’s when his face pops up on her again.

 

His eyes immediately take to the top of her shoulder. She’s bleeding and, yes, it hurts like hell.

 

“You’re injured.”

 

Mins scoffs, “State the obvious, big ears. But it’s a flesh wound.” She glances at it. There’s less blood than there was before at least. “Bullet missed.”

 

“You should get that looked at properly.” And there he is again with that parental tone. A rumble went through this ship, almost as if something was colliding gently against it. “That will be the galactic governments landing.”

 

“That was quick.”

 

“Yeah,” he smiled, the first one she’s seen from him, “I’ve got them on speed dial. I better get up there and see that they get everyone someplace safe.” He got distracted by the fuss being made over the newcomers arriving. Mins felt a very forceful tug and pull at her arm. It was Jenny. She was holding a finger to her lips, gesturing her to be silent and come along with her. Mins slipped away effortlessly and Jenny led her away from the stranger made up of ears and nose and all the annoyances of a parental figure wrapped together.

 

Jenny’s grip was tight on her arm and she kept glancing behind them anxiously. “We need to get out of here. My god,” Jenny laughed heartily. “You are proving to be an absolute challenge to keep hidden away. It’s a good thing I found you before he handed that key over.”

 

Minerva wrinkled her nose. “Rude is what you are. Dragging me away while I’m bleeding all over the place.”

 

Jenny shook her head fondly. “Each of them gets that look about them right before they cough up a Tardis key and whisk you away with them. Every single one of him.”

 

Then it hit her like a ton of bricks. That had been…

 

“No, that was – it – did – he’s –”

 

Jenny giggled helplessly. “Enunciate, my dear girl.”

 

Mins’s first instinct was to turn back. To go prod at him, at their father, so she could hear him blabber on about something dark and moody because, honestly, that face looks the type. To study every feature of his with her own two eyes and see if she’s got any of his habits or traits. She’s bound to have some physical attribute or gesture in common with one of his faces at least. She wants to have this face as something to hold onto until the moment comes where she can finally speak to him as his daughter and not a stranger wandering until that time comes along.

 

Jenny was all knowing at Mins’s side, her grip tightened like iron, refusing Minerva the chance to get away.

 

“Mins, you know you can’t.”

 

Mins can hear the unspoken apology in her sister’s voice but she couldn’t help protest while she had the chance. “But-”

 

“He’s not _your_ father.” Jenny said sympathetically. “Not yet. Just like, if we’re getting technical, your father isn’t my father, face wise, but future versions at least should know we both exist. We don’t need to jumble up anymore of our timelines.”

 

Mins wanted to argue against it. That he was the same man and, different face or not, he’d want to know of them. Of course, deep down she knew Jenny was right. The truth of it stung deep and vicious. Times like this, to have him so close she could reach for him yet knowing she wasn’t permitted to, it was enough to make her wish Jenny had never come for her in the first place.

 

“I know.” Jenny assured. “I know. I’ve run into other versions of him before and it’s hard, but one day, one glorious day will come along and everything will be as it should for the both of us. One day. I promise.”

 

Mins lets Jenny drag her along until they can take off via vortex manipulator.

 

“Which one is he?” Mins finally asks.

 

“Nine.” Jenny answered, suddenly looking just as longing to go back to him as Mins felt. They took off, landing in Paris in the year 2001. It was there than Jenny told her the rest of it.

 

“He was alone.” Said Jenny. “That means he’s just been through the war.”

 

 

Mins sent a package off later that week, not entirely certain when in time it would arrive to the recipient.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

It was his early days as a Time Agent when Jack Harkness got a special delivery. There was no name, no return address, just a note with three words on it.

 

_Thought of you._

 

Jack opened the package.

 

"Well, would you look at that?" He held up the [sonic blaster](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Sonic_blaster) gifted to him by this unknown stranger and smiled. "I was just about to go buy one of these."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, Jenny and Minerva adventures happen (because a plot is playing out, I swear) and, apparently, the Ninth Doctor worked his way into this one. It was not even my intention when I first sat down to write this part for any of the Doctor's to show up but I can honestly say that I'm not sorry.


	16. Fifteen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I believe this chapter contains one of the moments you have all been waiting for. I hope I did it justice.

_**Fifteen.**_  

 

Searching for his Jenny consumed his every hour but the amazing bit is he hadn’t gone completely mad with the lack of progress he’s made. He’s too excited to burn out just yet. Knowing Jenny was out there was hope enough to keep any frustrations at bay.

 

More than a month passed by the time Vastra tracked him down herself. She’d been absolutely furious and had her sword at his throat the second she set eyes on him.

 

“I left messages! Updates via messages left on a telephone is a way of keeping in touch!” he insisted.

 

“I beg to differ, Time Lord!” She hissed.

 

“You’re right! You’re right! I’m sorry. Truly. I gave you my word that I would help you find out who sent you that letter but things got complicated. I’ve been… busy.”

 

That peaked her interest and she lowered her weapon. “Busy, you say? In what manner? And be specific.”

 

“Well,” he grinned and straightened his bowtie. Her eyes widened at the long unaccustomed gesture. “My daughter. Jenny.” He explained. “She’s alive.”

 

“I see.” Vastra watched him carefully. “I can accept how that would take precedence over all other things.”

 

She seemed pleased with his explanation but his relief did not last long because Vastra’s sword was up against his throat once more. It pressed against the flesh of his neck with more pressure than previously.

 

“It’s still not an acceptable reason for being a bad friend to those who have been nothing but good to you.”

 

“I fully concur!” He managed to squeak out.

 

“Good.” She relented and he was grateful. “And now, since you agree your actions are completely unworthy of our forgiveness, you will show up for tea once a week to prove you are sorry. You are very dear to us, old friend, but keep us out of the loop once more and I will behead you and you will be donated to those horrible monks. I’m sure Dorium Maldovar will appreciate the company.”

 

He agreed without hesitance.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

He truly is looking. He’s not just gallivanting from planet to planet, passing through and then off again; a man travelling not for the destination, but the running. He’s running as she’s possibly running. Like father, like daughter – so they say. They’re bound to run into each other. That’s how it works. That’s how his life works. If there’s an inkling tied to what lies ahead in his future then eventually he’d catch up to whatever it was his future is tied to.

 

No matter how Vastra insists otherwise, he _can_ stay still. It just seems that this is a very specific period in his life where the gallivanting and passing through is the right path.

 

“Travelling without a companion is not very wise of you.” The Lizard Woman voiced. “Search to the ends of the universe, do as you must, but don’t do it alone.” Then she said something that struck him like ice piercing straight through both his hearts. “What would that wife of your say to this folly?”

 

He expected Vastra to look aghast. For her to realize what had just come out of her mouth. For it to have slipped out without her meaning it to. She didn’t look sorry, nor did she apologize. She held his stare while taking a sip from her cup of tea. He gave her the silent treatment for the rest of the afternoon but she was not having it.

 

“If you cannot handle the truth, my friend, then by all means please don’t let me stop you from running away from it. You’ve paid your weekly visit. I’ll look forward to our next one.”

 

And that was that.

 

He found himself sulking once inside his Tardis.

 

“She was very rude.” He told the Old Girl. “Bringing up my…” but he couldn’t say it. _Wife_. Technically he didn’t have one anymore now, did he?

 

Rudeness aside, his friend did have the right of it. There was running and there was _running_. He was partaking in the semi-healthy, adventurous kind that usually happened with a companion at his side but that didn’t mean he wasn’t indulging in the other sort either.

 

He’d not forgotten that it was Kate Lethbridge-Stewart who initially prompted him to upload the information John Smith had given him into his Tardis. It was also impossible to ignore the contents in that flash drive had been sent directly to the Library itself. The Old Girl didn’t even bother being subtle about wiping clean all information before he could take a look at it. It was done on purpose. All of it pointed straight to the one thing he doesn’t want to look back on.

 

The Library. It’s always the Library. Not only will he not look back, he will not go back. He can’t.

 

Luckily, three days later the running finally got him somewhere.

 

“You are not alone.”

 

“Funny.” The Doctor smiled at the large, huminoid-like head he’d come across before, each time with a different face. It was only later on that he learned, if he and Martha had the right of it, exactly who this mysterious stranger was.

 

_Used to be a poster boy when I was a kid living on the Boeshane Peninsula. Tiny little place. I was the first one ever to be signed up for the Time Agency. They were so proud of me. The Face of Boe, they called me._

 

“You said that the last time I saw you.”

 

“Did I?” said the Face of Boe.

 

The Doctor restrained himself from lingering too much on the memory of their last meeting where the Face of Boe met his death. He shrugged instead, opting for casual rather than too serious.

 

“If you haven’t yet you will do.”

 

“I shall keep that in mind then.” Replied the giant head in a jar.

 

“So, Jack… how have you been?”

 

The Face of Boe chuckled. “A face who knows. That has not happened in a long while.”

 

“So I take it we have other encounters with this one.” The Doctor slapped lightly at his cheeks.

 

“If you haven’t yet,” he replied, “you will do.”

 

“It is good to see you again.” The Doctor admitted. “Haven’t really kept in touch.” And he was referring to the other Jack. The Jack who was still a man, who was saving the Earth when he wasn’t around to do so. The Face of Boe catches onto his meaning. It’s quite impressive.

 

“You won’t have to bother.” He told the Doctor. “We have a very interesting journey, you and I.”

 

“I look forward to it.”

 

And he genuinely was looking forward to it.

 

“Doctor,” the Face of Boe called when the time came for him and the Doctor to part ways once more. “You are not alone.”

 

“I know.” The Time Lord smiled, thoughts of Jenny filling him up again. Then his old friend surprised him.

 

“You do not.” Boe proclaimed. He didn’t elaborate.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

It was worse than Oswin could have imagined. The Shadows had taken enough of what made up River Song as a whole and left behind the bits and pieces that Cal had been able to save by extricating River from the computer. And here, right in front of her, were the remains of River Song. She’s altogether on the outside, hair, curves, all that good stuff. It’s the inside that’s a mess. Vacant and existing only because she’s being kept neutral by the computer.

 

If River Song were human the bits missing from her copy would have been impossible to reclaim, but the Doctor’s wife is human plus. It is still impossible to restore everything but the sum of Time Lord science has its privileges.

 

Time Lords survive death, they stay intact. Habits and preferences are remembered even if their current body has different tastes. Memories, they also manage to stay intact. The go on from one life to the next different and yet still the same.

 

Oswin has no doubt that the parts River has lost can be reclaimed. Of course, they won’t be perfect. She won’t be as she was, but she will be able. She can survive this life. She can resurrect into the next.

 

Oswin was at a loss at first. Sure, it was all good and easy when worked out in theory but actually figuring out the how to, that was the tricky bit. It started to come together like pieces of a puzzle.

 

Time Lords. Same person, different face. Why was that exactly? It’s in the DNA, yes, but there must be some other sort of link. Something that matters more than the body and the brain. Something of sentiment… they… they have a body with two hearts. Two hearts.

 

“Oh, we could be onto something here.” Oswin waved a finger at the Professor. “I don’t even have a heart. Literally,” the girl pressed her hand to her chest and it went right through, “I’m all virtual and yet I’ve become capable of love anyway. A heart. I’ve learned that it’s something heavy. It’s a lifeline. So two hearts? There’s got to be something at the root of you Time Lords. In your case, human plus.”

 

Oswin watched River’s face, eyes squinting, trying to force some sort of hint out of the woman by the power of the stare.

 

The stare is no help at all and Oswin stomps around, frustrated and wishing there was some kind of decoding system in River Song’s brain that she could break into.

 

“What could possibly be at the heart of you?”

 

The obvious then occurred to her.

 

“Oh.” Oswin slowly moved back into River Song’s eyesight. The expression on the woman’s face did not change, she stayed ever vacant. “I know you’re still in there. All sorts got lost when the Shadows got into the hard drive. They expected a good munch of food, instead they got you. They got River Song.” Oswin smiled. “River Song’s got memories. River Song _knows_ things. Knowledge from the likes of River Song… you could probably burn stars with what you know. Poor Shadows got more than they asked for, didn’t they?”

 

No answer.

 

“Maybe you can be decoded after all.” Oswin pondered aloud while more and more possibilities flooded the inside of her brain. One in particular stood out most of all.

 

_The question._

_The question that must never be answered._

_The oldest question in the universe…_

_… hidden in plain sight._

 

When realization sunk in, it sunk in deep.

 

“Knowledge.” Oswin whispered.

 

_you could probably burn stars with what you know_

 

Oswin was part of the computer, she was strong. The Shadows had proven to be stronger. They silenced the Library. If the things River Song knew had been enough to weaken the Shadows then Oswin’s own fate would be most unfortunate.

 

If she did ask, if River did give an answer, she wasn’t going to make it back out there, back to her Jenny.

 

_you’re the Keeper of The Forest_ something inside her said _and the only water in the forest is the river_

 

She heard herself speaking before she could change her mind.

 

“This is Oswin 27810, requesting access to main control.”

 

“Oswin 27810 confirmed.” The computer answered. Various beeping sounds followed, indicating the computer scanning for the model Oswin had been built from. “Access granted.”

 

“Who else is left to authorize protocols?”

 

Oswin held her breath. More scanning.

 

“One match found.” The computer answered.

 

It was as she’d feared, but ultimately known. She was the last in charge. This would end with her and only she could end it. Oswin found herself overwhelmed by the human emotions she’d picked up over the years. The resentment for her current situation has never been more fueled, she’d never felt more robbed. It’s downright unbearable but Oswin had a job to do. She could feel it. No matter how she resisted, if her programing took full control, she would be shoved into a backup space while the program she was created for followed through. She would not let that happen. She has no choice in the matter of refusing. The only choice she does have is using the last bit of will she is allowed: consciousness.

 

The Keeper Of The Forest took a deep breath and, with tears streaming down her cheeks, she chose to be brave.

 

“I hereby authorize computer consciousness for River Song, birth name Melody Pond, to shut down.”

 

The word _error_ blinked all around her. It was the computer trying to stop any sudden action before confirming its command.

 

“Computer consciousness locked, CAL authorization needed.”

 

“CAL is gone. I am the only authority left.” Oswin turned her attention back to River Song. “It’s all on you now, Professor Song. Either you remember or you shut down with us.”

 

River Song gave no response. The loss of hope consumed Oswin so completely but she commanded the computer anyway.

 

“Bad Wolf Virus enabled.”

 

A voice audio count down began, starting at ten seconds.

 

_The key is a word lost to time._

 

Oswin felt herself grow frantic. The more she searched for some recognition in River Song’s eyes, for something inside the woman to snap and realize that this was it, the more hopeless Oswin became. If River did not do her part she too would perish inside the computer.

 

_A secret hidden in the deepest shadow and known to you alone._

 

“River Song, this is your get out of jail free card.”

 

_The answer to a question._

_“_ All you have to do is answer me this….”

 

_(five)  (four)  (three)_

 

“Doctor who?”

 

And River answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the name of the Doctor saves the day. Who would have thought?


	17. Sixteen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was intent on having this up so much sooner but I've been in the process of rearranging my life since I'm moving from where I live plus I've caught a cold. I'm resenting the universe for that and you should too. It's 2AM and I'm exhausted but since I'm finally semi-capable of getting this chapter up I refuse to waste more time.
> 
> In JMTOF the story reached the main plot points bit by bit and it was slow-building, which I kind of love in fics because the frustration that comes behind having to wait for that moment you've been waiting for make the waiting worth it etc etc etc. This sequel, however, has yet to play out. Well, it's about to play out. Slow-building promises the best of things that have yet to come and so I must also warn you (and apologize profusely) because unfortunately that also means that the worst is yet to come. In eventual happy endings you do need the tragedies before fortunes. Of both categories I've incorporated in this chapter. 
> 
> That said:  
>    
> 

_**Sixteen.** _

 

Mins and Jenny didn’t make it a habit of staying in one place for too long but they’d ended up spending a great deal of time on Karn. Time Lord science happened to be elevated there and it took longer than a moment’s visit to become properly knowledgeable of it. The Sisters we suspicious to why girls so young of age and supposed human origin would choose to spend their time on their planet but [Ohila](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Ohila), one of Karn’s well respected, had grown fond of them. Her reluctant affection swayed enough doubts to allow the girls access to Karn.

 

“You girls are fortunate we maintain a certain discretion on Karn.” Ohila mentioned to the girls in their last days spent with the Sisterhood. “Should he end up crossing paths with Karn again he won’t be hearing of you. Not from us. Your secret is safe here.”

 

Mins held a wager with Jenny that the Sisterhood would work out their secret sooner or later and at Ohila's confirmation it gained her full control to the vortex manipulator and the next of their destinations as a her prize.

 

“How long have you known?” Jenny asked the woman.

 

“Karn knows the manner of Time Lords. We have become the most accurate source of your race, less knowing of your complete genetic make-up than Gallifrey itself. We’d have known you anywhere. Whatever reason you are keeping your identities a secret means there is only trouble in the future and your secret will hold the universe on the brink. We will serve at the universe’s best interest, whatever may come.”

 

Jenny and Minerva departed Karn in the best of terms. Ohila and the Sisterhood got their answer in the years to come when the universe's very fate was to be decided at the hands of a Time Lord. The good man gone to war.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

After Karn, Mins chose team Torchwood as their next stop. They had to steer clear of Jack’s actual team but were finally introduced to Martha’s fiancée, Mickey Smith, this time around.

 

“UNIT offices were consulted by an unnamed source just last month.” Martha informed the girls. “That’s usually him. Around lower branches we keep him nameless and we keeps specifics to ourselves unless instructed otherwise. He’d just returned from a horrible incident. A space ship was using Oods to power their travels. He was a new face I’d not come in contact with.”

 

“Me and Captain Cheesecake over here have.” Mickey Smith mentioned.

 

The girls remembered. It happened to be Mins’s first encounter with their father’s Ninth Incarnation.

 

“He was also looking for someone.” Martha revealed. “A girl.”

 

“Funny thing too Mins,” Jack added. “This someone happened to fit your very description.”

 

“Bet you both upstaged him being the hero, eh?” Mickey grinned at the Doctor’s daughters. “That’ll attract the old Boss’s interests alright.”

 

Mins had flushed at being caught on. Jenny simply shrugged. “He does work better with company.”

 

“And who better than two young girls just as mad as him?”

 

All toasted to the truth of Mickey’s comment. The rest of the stay was so very lovely.

 

Up until they were saying goodbyes did Captain Jack Harkness suddenly become woeful. Something was taking place in the future, long and far away and were both sisters were out of it's reach. They hadn't known it at the time, but then again, who could've know what was to come? The future did happen to be cruelest at beginnings. Beginnings made endings inevitable.

 

"It's a damn shame." Jack had confided to them. "One of my favorite planets is going to be gone forever. Not now, but out there somewhere in time it's happening. That's enough to ruin a decade for someone, right?"

 

“Must be awful.” Said Jenny.

 

“You girls should check out the place before it happens.” Captain Jack suggested.

 

Jenny agreed all too readily. “Just you name it.”

 

“Go the day it’s opened to the public. As an incentive I can promise you’ll find me there. You have to get me drunk enough to forget you though!”

 

Mins rolled her eyes dramatically. “Alright, alright, just name the bloody place!”

 

All Jack had to do was make mention of it and Jenny was all ears and the future was set in stone.

 

“The Library.”

 

Minerva’s hearts tightened, Jenny’s hearts stopped.

 

And that’s how Minerva would make her first and only visit to the planet that stole not one, but two, of her most beloved. The Library would leave behind a silence Mins would never be rid of. 

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

The sound of clocks filled River Song's head. The incessant ticking and clicking, purely mechanical. Her senses were filled with smells of smoke and fear.

 

_Who are you?_

His eyes, so young, unknown to the likes of her. Every look he’d laid upon her, of years and lifetimes with that man, they’d never looked back at her like this this; at worst they’d ever only been reluctantly fond, and every single one made sense now.

 

_This means you’ve always known how I was going to die._

So much sense now.

 

_The towers sang, and you cried._

( The Towers hadn’t even sung through their first act and he’d collapsed completely, fully surrendering under weighted emotions. “Sweetie…” she’d brushed the tears from his eyes and he’d stopped her, he’d let his tears fall and fall and she’d not understood, how could she? he’d cried and he’d held onto her, the thought never occurring that he was crying for _himself_ , for the loss her; the night went on and he spent that time making love to her, it was the most intimate of their couplings, so tied and as one they were that night; it had left her mirroring the unknown devastation her husband was made of, his arms clinging and his voice branding a whisper onto her skin, helpless – _River don’t, please don’t_ – and she cried; her ageless God, lying beside her, all powerful – the ultimate weapon – when he chooses to be sounding still and powerless because he could not stop _this_ )

 

 _You and me._ _Time and space._

Running, hand in hand, always the running. Funny thing is, she'd only ever thought it was the Silence they'd been running from.

_Hush now…_

( Jack was sitting across from her, both silently conversing for Minerva was sleeping in the other room; “Are you sure?” he’d asked her, his stare hard and urging her to reconsider – “I trust you.” She’d said, “I’ll go wake her.” – “Why not him? He is her father.” )

 

_... spoilers_

 

( she’d said, and neither her nor Jack believed it for a second; “I’ll take care of her.” Jack promised – “I know.”)

River startled upright, waking with a gasp. She was in a barn. It’s not been occupied for a long while, that’s for sure. She was also not alone.

 

“Who’s there?”

 

“A wolf.” Answered a voice. River followed it, turning to look behind her.

 

A woman, a blonde woman, was sitting on a box. The box was responsible for the ticking, River knew that somehow. Seems to be a running theme because River also knew exactly who this woman was.

 

“You’re... you are, aren’t you?”

 

“No,” the woman in rags shot up from her sitting position. “In this form…” And [her eyes burned bright](http://i1342.photobucket.com/albums/o777/youlooklikethunder/whocap1_zps3f279f60.jpg).

 

“Bad Wolf.” River accepted with a nod. This form, that box, River had enough to go on to realize where she was. “Shouldn’t these events be time-locked?”

 

“Would you prefer the reality?”

 

The illusion of the barn fell away. River found herself right in the middle of the fall of Arcadia. The people were everywhere, running and frantic. And the children... River couldn’t bear that. She shut her eyes and when she opened them reality was properly cloaked again.

 

River found The Moment looking at her, the sentient being holding a look of concentration upon her face before a name came out from lips. The Doctor’s name. Again and again and again she spoke it.

 

“Stop saying that!” River exclaimed, wanting nothing more than to place a hand over the woman’s mouth and keep that name a secret for all of forever, as it should be.

 

“It’s the name in your head.” The Moment replied. “I chose this form especially for you.”

 

“You chose Rose Tyler?” River said. “For me?”

 

River couldn’t quite believe that. If it were the Doctor, sure, this form would fit perfectly. Rose Tyler had been faith and hope and rebirth and… and love.

 

“You’re thinking about it the wrong way.”

 

“I’m sorry?”

 

“I hear you.” The Moment explained. “Both of you. Wandering around through time and space. Apart, together, in sadness and joy and love and hate and the wanting… and the secret. You said spoilers to that man, to Jack Harkness. You meant secret. Does he move you to fear so much that you choose to hide your own child across the universe and rely on hope that he won’t catch up?”

 

It's more of a pondering statement than a question but even then, River isn’t keen to answer to anyone just yet.

 

“Why you?” River demands, unconvinced still that of all the forms The Moment could have taken to best suit her interests Rose Tyler was the choice. It’s not that River has anything against Rose but if there was ever anyone who could give _her_ hope, well, it would be her mother.

 

“I’m not here to give you hope.” The Moment came closer. “I see the whole of time and space, every single atom of existence and you’re stitched through the universe like threadwork. The universe has tried to pick you apart, all of you, and it’s failed. You weave through the stars anyway. Everything comes to dust, everything dies, everything ends. I see everything. All that is, all that was, all that ever could be. I don’t bring hope, River Song, I bring life. But I’m curious… do you want it?”

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

_There's a man, the last of his kind, travelling across space and time. He's waited a long while and it's given him a lot of hope. One daughter will go to him, tell him a story, tell him his patience has won him happiness and sadness, both at the same time. Tell him of a family he has once again. How he's waited many years and he did save his wife in the end. Only one of his daughters will tell him..._

 

The Library. It began here. For Jenny, for Mins. Truly it had. They were always going to end up here. Choices are made in the name of experience and memories, of what was and what is and what will be, of love and of loss. Only until loss occurs can one realize what matters and why it is love that conquers all. It is what makes us and breaks us.

 

Love led River Song to her death, River’s death led the Doctor to River Song; _you’ll be the death of me_ – said the woman who killed the Doctor; _wife_ – said the Doctor who married River Song. Love: _always_ , _completely_.

 

Love is the reason a daughter followed her father, it led her to a Library, his daughter helped a computer program become more than just numbers and protocol. _You are human._ Love: meaning it conquers. _I am human_ ; it made Oswin human, it made her brave. Her bravery led Jenny to Minerva Song. Love and death, forever entwining, they bring the sisters to the start, the end, of it all.

 

 _loss_ – the Library greets Minerva at last – _and_ _here we are_.

 

The Library is restricted, in the process of being sealed indefinitely. It will be silent for good. The virus enables obliteration. Connections are to be cut off and once completed in its purpose the Shadows would be dead and gone. A ring would form a hardened shell around the planet’s atmosphere. The planet's fate is to become cold, frozen rock. The virus would have repaired plenty of functions the Library has lost inside the data core but obliterating the entire planet sort of makes such progress useless. The outside world would never know the extent of such repairs since frozen rock is not like to be responsive. No one would ever know of what progress was accomplished, if the sanctuary the Lux family had created for Cal in the first place had been fully restored. If a functioning virtual world somehow managed to exist behind that hardened rock it would be a bloody miracle.

 

Jenny is refusing the notion of Oswin being gone. She’s intent on being uploaded to the data core. Of finding Oswin, of saving her. There would be no saving, there would only be entrapment. Desolation is all Jenny will be sentencing herself to. Well, Minerva refuses to let her.

 

“It’s impossible!” Mins argues.

 

“Just barely.” Replies Jenny. She’s not even broken a sweat.

 

“You can’t rely on almosts!”

 

“But I sure love the sound of it!”

 

When Jenny starts to walk towards the energy engulfing the planet Mins reacts accordingly. She seeks out, wrapping a hand tight around Jenny’s wrist and tugs her sister back.

 

“Don’t. We’ll find another way. I can’t let you. I _won’t_.”

 

“Sweet girl,” Jenny pats her sister's cheek. “There is no other way.”

 

“There is!” Mins insisted. “And we don’t know what’s come of her for sure. She could have been sent somewhere else. She planned this out, all of it. What makes you think she’d not have been ready for this too?”

 

“The only reason she’d not tell me is because she had no way out. She’s in there alright.” Said Jenny. “She is. And I’m not leaving her.”

 

 _No_ , Mins thought, _you’re leaving me_.

 

The dread of Jenny disappearing from her life forever made it hard to keep a level head. Her mind was so full of panic that it hardly left room for anything else.

 

“We’ll find Dad.” Is what came out of Minerva’s mouth, the suggestion lacking of confidence. There would be nothing to sway her sister, but she wouldn’t give up, wouldn't give in. Not yet. Not without fighting until there was no one there to fight for.

 

“You said one day,” Mins reminded Jenny. “Well this is the day. We go find him. We’ll finally find him and he’ll help us. He’ll make it right.”

 

“The planet will turn into a granite monument. It’s already started. Open your eyes, numpty.”

 

And Jenny was right. The magnetic field was spreading itself in all direction, inch after inch, reshaping and molding every surface still standing.

 

“But don’t you see?” Jenny exclaimed, her smile wider. “She had it right, Mins!”

 

“Who – what are you talking about?!”

 

“The girl who stopped waiting!” Jenny laughed. “The girl who gave it all up for the one person, her person. I won’t keep Oswin waiting. Not for a second longer. She’s mine, Oswin is mine, and I’m hers. Your Gran had it right, Mins. Together or not at all.”

 

Minerva set her hold on Jenny loose. Not of want, never, but she could neither hold her sister back, just as her own Mum couldn’t hold Amy Pond from Rory Williams. If anything, Mins wanted them both to walk out the Library together, hand in hand. She didn’t want to have to find their Dad alone. Mins shut her eyes, pulling herself back and recoiling inside of herself, sinking away from her pain, there was no need of it consuming her. Not now. Not in these moments, the last.

 

“Jenny, please don’t.” she begged still. “Don’t leave me here on my own.”

 

The first sign of sadness appeared across Jenny’s face. The first recognition that she too knew she’d not make it back out, back to Mins. The blonde took Mins’s face in her hands and leaned forward, placing a kiss on her sister’s brow.

 

“It’s all going to be okay, Mins.” Jenny wrapped her arms around Minerva and hugged her tight. “Things always work out in the end. Tell him… tell him… oh, he’s going to hate this. He hates endings. I promised him a Hello, Dad! yet here I am.” She laughs and the sound is soft and comforting against Mins’s ear. It’s happy and content. The impossible and yet completely possible chance of finding Oswin still inside the computer is enough for this sacrifice. Love, all it essentially is, is loss.

 

“Tell him anyway, Mins.” Jenny pulled back to look at the youngest of them, the same sparkle in her eye present as is the confident grin on her lips. “Tell him for me, so he can move on. Tell him I said: Goodbye, Dad.”

 

She’s the strongest person Mins has ever known, but endings tend to break hearts, and both their hearts are breaking, and yet Jenny’s stands fearless.

 

It happens in slow motion. Her sister holding Mins tight and secure and safe one moment, and the next that presence is pulling away. The space Jenny has orbited around her universe for so many years now – hundreds, thousands, a million forevers and more – is pulling away and out of reach. Mins watches the only family she has in her grasp go on, further and further, fading, ghosting. A pull, the gravity they share tears with the growing distance. The stability Jenny provides is tilting Minerva's world, leaving her a lone wanderer standing on the tips of her toes, balancing on the surface of the universe.

 

“I love you.”

 

It’s the last thing Jenny said before she stepped inside the bright hues, static crackling and sizzling, life and heart and flesh disintegrating right before Mins’s eyes.

_… how the song of the Doctor's lost daughters had ended, but finding the rest of his family is a story that has yet to end._


	18. Seventeen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we go any further… REMINDER: **DISCLAIMER**. Because these are, of course, not my characters and the main plotbunny behind this turn belongs to Moffat, so he gets all the credit.
> 
>  **AN:** Right. I just have to say this before you go any further as a warning just in case this is not your cup of tea. This fic is about to go FULL-ON AU, ten times more so than it already is, in concerns to the 50th anniversary special. Now, firstly, I fucking loved the 50th, don't get me wrong, this rewrite in no way is me dissing/hating on TDOTD. I mean, I personally would have enjoyed River/the Ponds being there for the Doctor's big day but even though they weren't it did not make the episode any less epic. I kept the same plot, no need to change it, I just changed characters that appeared etc etc.  
>  I also have no idea why my mind made this up and I'm more that certain I’m going to create a crack in the universe by even attempting this but either way I'm going to be brave and just put it out there. I've worked on it longer than I should have and if I don't post it now I never will.
> 
>  

_**Seventeen.** _

 

_I bring life._

 

The words rung too true for River Song. The bother is that she can’t piece together why. There is a disconnect, a void. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.

 

Meanwhile, The Moment stands aside. Motionless and speculating at River’s every response and expression. Eventually the entity grows restless with the silence and begins to prod.

 

“Cat got your tongue?” the Bad Wolf girl inquires, her smile all teeth. “You haven’t answered my question.”

 

River frowns. “What question was that?”

 

“Life. Do you want it?”

 

The question leaves River flooding with an onslaught of anger. It feels irrational to have but once it’s there she can’t find a way to hold it back. It’s flowing out in every direction and for the first time in a very long time she’s helpless to stop it from consuming.

 

“What does it matter what _I_ _want_?!” River shouts, “It’s never mattered before!”

 

The words taste bitter on her tongue and the statement, once said, sounds truer than anything has in all the years gone by. A wave of desperation takes its hold of her. It has her hands wanting to reach out for something, anything, to seek out and hold on, someone to catch her before she falls.

 

 _He always catches me…_ it’s a horrible state, she realizes, this act of unhinging … _where is he now?_

 

“You don’t remember?” The Moment’s eyes twinkle with amusement. “Are husbands and wives prone to go through ginormous lapses of forgetfulness when making impossible things possible?” she leans forward, taunting, “If I didn’t know any better I’d say you two were made for each other.”

 

“Stop it.” River begged. It hurt too much. Everything hurts too much “You’re speaking in riddles and I’m not…”

 

She could feel it now. This airy feeling. Almost. Not finished. Less than. And she is afraid.

 

River looks back up and the Moment is nodding in confirmation. “You’re not whole.”

 

_I bring life._

 

The words echo in River’s brain. She _feels_ them. They run through her, threatening to topple her over with the force. She’s blinded, falling, fading through. And she’s remembering now.

 

She remembers being somewhere, _out there_ , outside of the computer. Not alive, no, but whole.

 

Out there. Yes. She had been led to a disastrous state in the universe where there lie an unconscious woman. A woman who had her face. And the Doctor. The Doctor was there. Her Doctor. Just to look at him, her nostalgic idiot, if she had need of breath she would have surely suffocated on it. Wherever the computer had sent her it took but a look for her to realize this woman who had her face was important. The Doctor had need of that unconscious girl in some way or form and it had been painful to see but it had put things in perspective. It had been her opportunity for Goodbye, the one her Doctor had never given her. The one he doesn’t know how to give. It’s a good thing she always knows.

 

Lies are words, words, words and the one thing the Doctor can always do is _talk_. And he did, and she did. _They_ talked. As everything is with that infuriating man there was plenty left unsaid, so many words having yet to unlock, so many that never would, but he’d said the one thing that had always been the hardest for him to admit. He’d said, with words, that he’d needed her too, still, even after all this time. Of course, she’d not expected it. For him to actually say it but it made every single thing she’d chosen to do from then on perfectly okay and worth it. With his admittance she’d accepted her fate with open arms and so she’d poured her own viable energy into this unknown woman. She gave it to this stranger because this person still had the chance to keep running, and in River’s experience, when given the chance to run with the Doctor one always should.

 

She’d been there to help. _You’re welcome, sweetie._ He’d called her name and she’d said goodbye and the light spread and so the light consumed.

 

“I gave life.” River concludes, unsettled by the memory. “Why am I here?”

 

“Gallifrey.” Answered the Moment. “You remember that too?”

 

“Of course.” River replied automatically, billions of recollections flashing before her eyes. The curious thing is, these things she can remember happening did not occur when she was alive, so how does she remember them?

 

Suddenly, a full recollection of this barn is taking up space in her brain. There’s a familiarity to it that one does not come across from just barely awakening in it. She gets a sense that she’s spent a great and very significant amount of time here.

 

“Don’t try to process it,” the Moment advised, “just let it all get gambled around in that head of yours.”

 

“What are they?” River gasped at the knowledge filling up the empty spaces inside of her.

 

“You’ve lost some of yourself at the Library, I’ve given you parts. Pieces that will put you back together. They’re memories you’ve accumulated in the time we’ve been coexisting.”

 

River is unable to feel any genuine fear or worries about such a revelation. She’s not able to wonder after how much time has passed or just what exactly this ‘coexisting’ with a weapon of mass destruction has entailed. It hurts at first and then it settles, first from her fingertips then down to her toes.

 

“I’m sure you’ve heard of this saying, Professor.” Rose Tyler’s voice is radiating all around her and then River knows it. She knows this feeling, she remembers feeling it… once in the middle of New York and the other Berlin, on the eve of war. “If something can be remembered,” The Moment is looking at the heart of her and River finds herself looking back. No matter how bright the Bad Wolf’s eyes burn into her own she cannot blink, “it can come back.”

 

_I bring life._

 

 

***

 

∴ ** _Gallifrey Falls (_** **NO MORE _)_** ∴

–  PART ONE  –

 

 

 **⇒** _GRANDDAD_

 

She’d materialized almost instantly, much to his surprise. He had a face she’d never seen before, the oldest of his faces – to her eyes anyway. The moment she’d arrived he’d dragged her up and out of the barn, shooing her out the door like she was a stray dog who’d taken residence without welcome but that had been no matter. She’d been transported back right where she’d stood seconds ago and his surprised face in return was more than enough compensation for his rudeness. Then he’d gone and squinted his wrinkly old eyes at her and her heart swelled with joy. Really, a girl could get used to this.

 

“You really are such a huffy granddad at heart, sweetie.” She’d laughed heartily and even pinched at one of his cheeks. “At last we reach a face properly showcasing you as such.”

 

The War Doctor eyed her hesitantly. “Do I know you?”

 

His question had dissolved through her glee straight away. It hit too close to home for her but she’d braved a smile on her face and carried on with it. Her heart grew heavy as she promised him his future yet again, offering in the vaguest of answers: “One day.”

 

Oh, but then they were back to squabbling in no time. He did quick work and caught on to who and what she was doing there. The shock on his face, bless.

 

“You’re the interface?!” he sputtered.

 

“Got a problem with that, have you?”

 

More squinting.

 

“But… but you’re… you’re so….” And he’d flapped his hands around his head in what she assumes is reference to her hair. One raised brow his way and his shoulder’s sagged, acceptance at last.

 

“Every moment in time and space is burning.” His eyes had been so dark, so haunted, telling her this. “It must end, and I intend to end it the only way I can.”

It broke her heart to place that weight on her husband’s war worn shoulders, the weight that has haunted him ever since, but she had been given a chance to play a part in his story once more and she’d agreed without a tiny bit of hesitance. Old habits and all…

 

“I have no desire to survive this.” He confessed, the exhale he gave was one of a man who’d lived too long. She almost breaks down too because in truth they both had. They go on and on and they break at every turn. What a pair they make….

 

“You will not die.” She told him. “If you burn Gallifrey, if that is what you choose, then you will take the Daleks along with it. The Universe will continue to turn and you will travel across time and space, to the beginning and the end of everything.” She’d allowed him a moment to process. “Can you do that?”

 

When he failed to answer she decided to help him along. She opened a time fissure and in popped a fez.

 

***

 

 **⇒** _CHINNY  
_

 

The Doctor had been completing his weekly tea-ins at Vastra’s when he’d gotten a request for his immediate presence at the Tower of London.

 

“Trouble?” The Doctor asked of beforehand. “Do I need a gang? I don’t really have a gang these days…” he’d gone all quiet and forlorn before the idea occurred to him and he smiled. “Who’s on staff?”

 

 

***

 

⇒ _SANDSHOES_

 

Down on one knee he realizes he may have picked a suit too tight for him, it’s pinching a bit it very soft places, but he can’t worry over that now. He’s got a virgin queen he’s about to out for the red bunch of suckers she is and if the too-tight-suit does the trick, well done him. He’s got her in his sights. This imposter with a voice all snipped to bits of crackly static that’s honestly just grating in the wind, red hair nothing but the dull shade of the _real_ Elizabeth’s. Out the question pops.

 

“Will you marry me?”

 

Just as he’d surmised she pounced on him readily, giving away her own stolen identity to light with a shout. “Of course I will!”

 

“Ah, gotcha!” he proclaimed, up and bouncing back on the balls of his feet, towering over her easily with his lithe frame with the sauntering and the leaning. Fully victorious, his mouth was off a mile a minute. Oh, and he just _loved_ this part.

 

“And,” … and out came one of his most handiest inventions. “ _Ding_.”

 

“What’s that?!” Zygon Elizabeth eyes blinked far too rapidly, another telling sign.

 

“It’s a machine that goes, _ding_.” The talking is happening again, he was on a roll.

 

“My love, I do not understand.” Said the so-very-not _real_ Elizabeth.

 

“I’m not your love, and yes you do.” And he leans forward to accuse her. “You’re a Zygon.”

 

Her face wrinkled up. “A _Zygon_?”

 

“Oh, stop it. It’s over!” his body swayed in the motion of victory, a tilt, a lean, a tug on the suit here, a hand gliding over the well fit packaging, a glance cast at  –

 

 _Oh_.

 

“I’m going to be King.”

 

***

 

⇒ _MISTER AND MISTER SMITH_ _  
_

It had been smooth landing. He’d gone and parked the Old Girl with confidence, leaving the shields down for but a moment but then he was up again. The gravity was shot right off so he was left tumbling all around the console room with his gangly limbs knocking into every single corner they could find until he wrapped his arms secure around the rails. He’d ended up in a position he never thought he’d be in again anyway: hanging outside of his Tardis doors with his bare hands.

 

With the shock of it came a quick euphoria, euphoria brought stars to his eyes. In those stars the seconds wrapped him up and took him away where he floated to another time, to the first of this face’s times where he’d been in this exact position, crashing into his eleventh hour and right into the backyard into what would become his favorite fairytale.

 

He doesn’t remember the end of the fairytale, he’s erased Manhattan from himself; it’s what makes the Library forefront in all of his hauntings. Whereas before he’d been ignoring River’s last he’d completely deluded himself of Amy’s and so when it came he made sure he didn’t keep it; Manhattan is forgotten. But there were other lasts, the lasts he cheated away from time. From when he denied Manhattan of what it had done and went back in time, he went back for them.

 

There had been the town called Mercy. And the invasion of the cubes. But it’s the dinosaurs that come to life and rip him anew.

 

He’d been tinkering with the Control Deck and then Amy had gotten her serious face on. “I just worry there'll come a time when you never turn up. That something will have happened to you and I'll still be waiting, never knowing.”

 

He’d told her once that he wouldn’t need her to trust him if he’d always tell her the truth. Rule One: The Doctor lies. _Because it hurts too much._ And so he smiled and he lied. “You’ll be there till’ the end of me.”

 

Amy had smiled that purely Pond smile. _Lie to me, Amelia._ He waited. _Please._ Instead: “Or vice versa.”

 

Now, hanging out of his Tardis, for these fleeting moments he loses place of his reality and he forgets completely. He can feel it all as if he were back at this face’s first face, crashing in on the garden shed and craving an apple.

 

Of course, the lower he came to ground the more reality fades back to its proper shade. He has to jump off from the Tardis before he ends up squashed beneath it.

 

Kate Stewart is standing in wait, looking abashed. “As Chief Scientific Officer, may I extend the official apologies of UNIT!”

 

“Kate Lethbridge Stewart!” he stomped over to her and chastised. “A word to the wise, as I'm sure your father would have told you, I don't like being picked up!”

 

“That one’s probably best gone through the filters before said, boss.”

 

The Doctor twirled around in search of the familiar voice, taking the man in his arms on sight. “Mickey Smith!” he said joyously.

 

Mickey chuckled and had to physically remove himself from the Doctor. “Alright, alright, that’s enough now.”

 

The Doctor clapped his hands together and snapped a finger at the man. “Where’s the wife?”

 

Mickey was in association with UNIT and the Doctor does not doubt he’s been well trained in the arts of evasion and subtlety, but the Doctor sees him and he sees _it_. Mickey knows something and he’s hiding whatever that is. The Doctor can’t weigh over what that might be though. Kate summoned him here for a reason, whatever games Mister Smith was playing at would have to wait.

 

“I'm acting on instructions direct from the throne.” Kate tells him, the envelope in her hand extended for him to take. “Sealed orders from her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the First. Her credentials are inside.”

 

Kate leads him inside, Mickey following after them. The painting is unveiled.

 

***

**_TO BE CONTINUED_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was pretty fun. And, by the way, in the beginning between the Moment and River there are references to things that happened in _Justify My Thoughts Of Flight_ so just in case you caught them I want you to know you're really cool.


	19. Eighteen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **AN:** This took so long because I've been busy recovering from a hospital stay and have had severe lack of energy, may this update make up for the wait and hopefully you can look over any mistakes. Like I said before I'm keeping the main plot of the 50th but with a few minor changes via characters. This little 50th!AU might run until the next two chapters, so bear with me (if you can).

**_Eighteen._ **

 

∴ ** _Gallifrey Falls (_** **NO MORE _)_** ∴

–  PART TWO  –

 

⇒ _EVERYTHING HAS ITS TIME_

 

When they find her the Doctor’s daughter is soaked to the bone.

 

“Love.” That is all Minerva tells Jack and Martha when they reach her. “Love happened.”

 

They bundle Mins up and load her into the backseat of Martha’s car and Jack and tells her to drive. They drive well away from Cardiff and a long way past. They drive and she watches, knowingly, as Jack gives the young girl a sedative.

 

Martha thinks over the past few hours, having just gotten word from the Tower Of London that the Doctor had arrived and had requested her presence. Then Jack showing up, busted and bloody in her and Mickey’s flat, demanding her to drive him out to the middle of nowhere. She’d sent Mickey off to greet the Doctor in her place. She’s not expected to find this, Mins so out of place, and Jack having the entire backstory. Knowing of Mins landing in this time and place, brokenhearted and alone, before they even gotten to her. It’s all too suspicious for Martha not to question.

 

“This can’t be a coincidence.” Martha is glancing at the mirrors and keeping check of anyone who might be tailing them. “Her, here… and… and him.”

 

“Yes.” Jack says. Whether he’s simply agreeing or actually confirming is lost on her.

 

“We should head back.” Says Martha. The edge in her voice is annoying to her own ears. She shouldn’t be this nervous sitting next to Jack Harkness. She knows Jack, they’ve been through hell and back together. But things have happened, she reminds herself, and she cannot ignore how physically _weird_ it feels to be near him and how _different_ he seems to be. “Maybe we can still make it back, I can call Mickey. He can stall, keep the Doctor in London. And we’ll get Mins to him, home, safe where she belongs finally.”

 

“Except it’s not time.” Jack insists, calm and collected. Far too clam for her taste.

 

“Says _who_!” She waited but Jack stayed mute, choosing to look at the road ahead. “Do you remember when we’d said goodbye to them, to both his girls?” Martha sure remembers. The girls had not been able to visit after that so much as write letters, the Rift a dead giveaway and all, but they’d done as promised. They’d kept in touch, letter after letter came. Years passed. They were out there in the world, they were _safe_. Jack _knows_ things he’s not telling her and Martha has to wonder just what in the hell is going on here. “You’d been so divided at what to do, just like me!” There’s too much desperation to her, she knows this, but she can’t help it.

 

Still, Jack gives her nothing.

 

“Jenny is gone.” Martha says quietly and is startled silent by the force of breath catching in her throat, her emotions overcoming her without her wanting them to. She really hates to be so despairing, so distrusting, in the open like this. “Her entire world is tilted, Minerva is _alone_!”

 

“She’s not alone.” Said Jack.

 

“And this,” Martha ignored him, “this not only feels like abandonment, this plan you’ve set on carrying out, this _is_ abandonment! And I won’t be a part of it! I will not let her go off all on her own. I know what that’s like, to go out there with no one and nothing at your side. If you don’t give me something, Jack, so help me I’ll turn this car around! So you better start talking, mister!”

 

“Martha,” he starts, his voice all gentleness, as if he’s cooing a child. And that’s that. She can’t. She swerves to the side of the road and slams on the breaks. She turns to face him.

 

“We are in this together, Jack Harkness, or,” she threatened, “I start taking recruits. Your choice.”

 

Captain Jack looked back at the precious cargo both he and Martha were smuggling out of plain sight.

 

“This is what has to happen.” He answered, voice full of resignation. “This is what has always happened.”

 

Martha knows that tone in his voice. There’s a finality to it that leaves no room for arguments, but begrudging acceptance. She’d lived through something of it before with the year that never was. “Where’ve you been, Jack?” she pressed, gentler this time. “What’s happened?”

 

“A woman.” Jack divulged, all his known cheek replaced with a sullen mask. He smiled. “Well, more a computer software device turned human, but then again who am I to judge.”

 

“You came from the future, then.” Martha decided, liking this all even less. “This isn’t the answer.” She maintained. “Standing still is never the answer.”

 

Jack reached for her hand suddenly. “I can’t tell you everything, but this is the last thing I can do for her.” He looked her straight in the eye. “This is the last thing I will ever do.”

 

Martha shivered when it starts sinking in. Wherever Jack had come from in the future he meant this action to be his last. Martha reached for his coat, that damned perfect coat, and tangled her fingers in his collar, eyes searching his. “But you _can’t_ die.”

 

Jack removed his vortex manipulator and quickly strapped it around her wrist. “This was programed for two last trips, to get me here and to take you right outside the Black Archive. It needs to be there, saved on account of my passing, when they go looking and since you have admittance they’ll let you pass easy.”

 

Martha’s eyes bulged. “You expect me to go there _now_!? With Mins in her current state?!”

 

“Hey,” Jack pulled that classic easy grin he’d always been famous for, “The Doctor is waiting and he asked for you and trust me, we don’t need him to start sniffing away from this little adventure. It will give him so much and you’ll help in a big way.” He winked. “As for Mins, she’ll be alright… so long as it all happens first.”

 

Jack looked like he wanted to say more but instead he silenced any more of her questions with a hug. “It’s so good to see you.” He muttered, a longing to the statement that had Martha hugging him back with all she’s got. “And, a Fez.” He told her upon pulling back, “Use the fez.” The Captain merely shrugged when Martha didn’t even bat a lash at him. “It’ll make sense when you get there.”

 

The vortex manipulator activated on its own and before Martha knew it she was gone.

 

 

***

 

 

⇒ _I WAS HERE TO HELP_

 

Martha blinks in at her new surroundings. The light of day is still upon them and yet it had seem so dark back there with Jack, as if shadows lurked at every corner. She took a look around. She was nowhere near the Black Archive.

 

“Ah, there you are.” An older man with curly white wisps of hair and a cane appeared and headed straight her way. He picked up her wrist and patted the vortex manipulator, “I question the settings on this prehistoric thing by the way. Remind me to do away with it forever, will you?”

 

The strange man spoke too conversationally, dashing about quicker than she’d expect a man for his age to and when she did not follow after him his eyes set on her specifically, they were nearly bulging out of his skull and full of crazed excitement. “Well, are you just going to stand there all day or are we off?” he questioned.

 

“I’m sorry?” Martha felt such a blunder in her own skin. “Are you addressing me?”

 

“Oh, dear.” He frowned. “Nasty time travel business, that thing.” Once again he pointed to the item strapped around her wrist and Martha had to do a double take. “Take so much out of you, especially one that old.”

 

Martha’s own eyes widened with recognition and she exclaimed, “Doctor!”

 

He smiled, radiating a manic kind of brilliance and madness joined together. “I am the Curator of the  gallery,” said the old man, “and I have urgent curator business to attend to. Now, if you’ll do me a lovely favor by handing me that vortex manipulator I’ll be happy to run it back to where it belongs for you.”

 

He had the same kind eyes Martha remembers, only now he’s older and grey. She smiles back at him, trusting in him and sliding off the time gadget. She hands it over to this unknown version of him.

 

“A star you are,” the Doctor kisses both her palms gently before extracting a rather questionable hat from out of nowhere and placing in her hand.

 

“And what am I supposed to do with this?” she asks, feeling around the texture of material that makes up the fez in her hand.

 

“I’m sure you’ll think of something.” He tells her. “I must be away, as I said, Curator business awaits me. It was ever so lovely to see you again, my Martha Jones.”

 

“You too.” She assures him. “And thank you.”

 

“No, no. I should be the one thanking you, for everything, but you are welcome all the same.” Then he leans close and whispers, almost as if it’s the biggest secret in all the cosmos. “I am always here to help, after all.”

 

Martha fills with a familiar sense of affection for him. “Will I see you again?” she wonders aloud.

 

“Oh, sooner than you think. You must get to the Tower, now, off you go. Run!” He shooed her away.

 

When Martha glances back, the Curator seems to have slipped away just as quick as he came.

 

 

***

 

⇒ _NO MORE  
_

 

Elizabeth’s credentials await for him inside the Tower Of London and the Doctor gazes back with sullen, unblinking eyes.

 

“No more.” He whispers.

 

“Also known as Gallifrey Falls.” supplies Kate, keeping her eye on the companionless Time Lord.

 

“How’s it doing that?” Mickey made attempt to reach out and touch the 3-D painting but he hesitated, cautiously he sent a look over to the Doctor. The Time Lord only shrugged.

 

“Go on, it won’t collapse in on itself if that’s what you fear.” Said the Doctor. Mickey gave it a good poke before leaning in to see the full detail. The Doctor found himself doing the same, “It’s the fall of Arcadia, Gallifrey’s second city, and it doesn’t belong here. Not in this time.” He glanced at Mickey, studying the painting so intensely it looked like it hurt. “Time Lord art.” He explained softly, “A slice of real time, frozen.”

 

“Pretty grand.” Mickey commented, a smirk appearing at his lips. “Have to do everything big, you lot.”

 

Though it was meant in good faith, The Doctor could not find it in himself to jest and smirk back. He remembers Arcadia all too well, still, even now. He relives that day in nightmares and waking moments too if he’s not careful. That was the day he did it. The day he killed them all.

 

“Room for one more?” inquired the voice of another. Martha Jones entered the room with a very bright red fez in hand.

 

 

***

 

 

⇒ _MYSELF_

 

He remembers this. Sort of remembers. It all comes back as he goes along. Bit by bit, his past connects and the images accumulate. It’s funny, looking at himself from the outside. He’s long in his past life, pinstripe suit and hair and that expressive face. The version before Himself regards him less enthusiastically. He’s quite rude, in fact.

 

“Regeneration.” Said Skinny Man. “It’s a lottery.”

 

Well, the Doctor could give as good as he got. They both stood around in an act of competitive squabbling until a voice broke through the time fissure and enraptured both their attentions.

 

“Doctor, you alright in there?!” he heard Martha Jones ask.

 

“I recognize that voice.” The man beside him muttered, looking unsettled. “Is that… ”

 

“Martha,” the Doctor confirmed/greeted. “I’m absolutely fine!” he assured her, side-eyeing Himself. “Really, couldn’t be better.”

 

“We heard talking.” That was Mickey. “Sounded kinda like…”

 

“Is that Mickey?” his other Self moved forward, closer to the time fissure, “Mickey Smith, is that you?!” the other him wondered incredulously, voice going a bit higher than necessary.

 

“Oh, of course it is!” The Doctor said impatiently, “Pay attention.” He grabbed the fez lying on the ground and tossed it up in the air a few turns.

 

“What are you going to do with that?” Skinny Man questioned, eying him like he’d grown another head.

 

The Doctor simply smiled. “Come along Smith and Jones,” he muttered before setting his aim, “Fez incoming!”

 

 

***

 

 

 

⇒ _THE TOWER_

 

Martha blinked up at the time fissure, the Doctor had gone up and in while the three of them were left behind. She’d heard him, both of him. They all had.

 

“Could this get any weirder?” Mickey asked from beside her and she smiled. It was nice having her other half right next to her again. She felt more secure.

 

“You really asking that?” she retorted.

 

“Yeah,” her husband agreed, his hand reaching out reflexively and grabbing hers. “This is basic modus operandi for him, innit?”

 

“I’ll say.” Kate Stewart interrupted, reminding them of her presence. Kate reached into her pocket and retrieved her mobile, dialing almost furiously. “Keep him talking.” She ordered to them before taking off in the other direction. “Malcolm? Malcolm, I need you to send me one of my father's incident files. Codenamed Cromer. 70s or 80s depending on the dating protocol.”

 

They listened until her voice trailed off to a low murmur.

 

“Well, you heard the boss lady.” Mickey nudged his shoulder into Martha’s.

 

“Course.” Martha rolled her eyes. She felt a wave of uneasiness but made sure to keep her cool. “Doctor?” she called out to no answer.

 

“Must be otherwise occupied.” Mickey suggested. She turned two worried eyes his way. “Two of him,” he insisted, “It’s bound to happen.”

 

Martha swallowed her doubts and nodded. “Yeah. Perhaps.”

 

“Hey.” Mickey said softly. “You alright? What about Cap-”

 

Martha pressed her palm to his lips and shook her head hurriedly. “Not here.” She mouthed and promised, “Later.”

 

Mickey nodded his head in agreement and slowly Martha lowered her hand. They were snapped into attention when the Doctor’s voice was booming from the time fissure, loud and clear. “Am I talking to the wicked witches of the well?”

 

“Wicked witches?” Mickey and Martha uttered in unison.

 

“Smithy and Jonesy, yes, hello.” Said the Doctor. “Would you mind telling these prattling mortals to get themselves begone?”

 

“Erm,” Martha stuttered, deciding it best to repeat exactly what was said. “Prattling mortals begone?”

 

“Yes, tiny bit more color.” The Doctor demanded from his end.

 

“Prattling mortals begone or…” Mickey shrugged, helplessly trying to come up with something. “Or you’ll all become little tin dogs hopping around in my big mucky pond!”

 

“Big mucky pond?” Martha whispered incredulously.

 

“Right, was hoping for some frogs but tin dogs will have to do.” They heard the Doctor complained lightly. “Anyhow, you heard him! You’ll all be turned into tin dogs!”

 

Kate reappeared in the blink of an eye demanding to know what was happening.

 

“From the sound of it,” Mickey surmised as the three of them stood overhearing the unseen conversation, “some sort of capture.”

 

Martha, Mickey and Kate stood quietly, intent to catch every word. The Doctor busied himself inviting the idea of being locked up in the Tower, his audience did not however seem amused by him.

 

“Silence.” Demanded the stern voice of a woman. “The Tower is not to be taken lightly. Very few emerge again.”

 

“Dear God, that man's clever.” Kate muttered. “Come on.” She told them.

 

“Where to?” Martha asked.

 

“My office.” Said Kate with a smile. “The Tower of London.”

 

 

***

 

_**TO BE CONTINUED** _


	20. Nineteen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Prepare yourself, I'm going to go a bit more AU in this one, especially since I've omitted the Trenzalore arc in this fic (for now)

**_Nineteen_ ** **_._ **

 

∴ ** _Gallifrey Falls (_** **NO MORE _)_** ∴

–  PART THREE  –

 

⇒ _SPLITTING UP_

 

“The Doctor will be trying to send us a message.” Said Kate into her phone whilst they waited for their ride over to the Black Archive together. “We're looking for a string of numerals from around 1550, approximately. Priority One.”

 

Martha noticed Mickey looking a bit anxious. “What is it?” she asked.

 

“Don’t know.” He answered her. “Can’t shake this odd feeling. Like something’s off.”

 

Martha nodded, agreeing silently. Something was bothering her as well. Her hair would stand on end from time to time for seemingly no reason at all but of course she knew better than that. Her body’s responses were never to be called off as coincidence, not in her life’s experiences.

 

“I’m going to go take a quick look around, alright?” Mickey told the both of them as the car arrived.

 

“Be careful.” Martha told him. The silent _I can handle myself_ not even needed to be uttered and he was off. She got into the car with Kate and they headed on to the Black Archive.

 

 

***

 

 

⇒ _RUN_

 

Mickey wandered at first but eventually ended up turning towards the Under Gallery. He found Kate’s assistant Osgood and fellow scientist McGillop testing stone dust, at the Doctor’s request.

 

“Come on in! We’re just finishing up.” Osgood said happily once spotting him. Mickey took hesitant steps inside, not knowing if his presence was permitted. He voiced those concerns too but Osgood smiled at him still and urged him to stay.

 

“Against protocol, actually.” McGillop muttered, a bit less enthusiastic.

 

Osgood sent her co-worker a glare. “It’s fine, really.” She insisted once again before turning her attention back to Mickey. “You travelled with him, didn’t you?”

 

He was a caught off guard by the question and Mickey Smith found himself nodding dumbly. It was known information by the people of UNIT so being asked about his own time travels did not happen often. If he was asked, well, he felt that most of it was best kept to himself.

 

“For a bit.” He allowed himself to say on the matter finally. She wanted to know more, he knew the look, but Osgood seemed to pick up on his reluctance to speak more on the subject and carried on her work. Mickey asked on how the analyzing was going, mostly to be polite.

 

“All that’s here is a lot of different stone, but none of it from the fabric of the building. It's like somebody smashed up a lot of old statues.” Osgood told him. “Are there any missing?” she directed at McGillop.

 

“Don't think so.” McGillop replied. “Why would anyone do that, anyway? I mean, I know we're meant to keep an open mind, but are we supposed to believe in creatures that can hide in oil paintings and have some sort of a grudge against statues?”

 

Mickey noticed Osgood’s entire stance change from one second to the next. She looked terribly frightened. He took note of the entrance he’d come through and tried to find another way out, just in case.

 

“You all right?” her co-worker asked, the question mirroring Mickey’s own thoughts.

 

“We have to go.” Said Osgood after inhaling a puff from her inhaler. “Right now, this minute.”

 

“What’s wrong?” McGillop demanded.

 

“The things from the paintings. I know why they smashed the statues.” Osgood revealed. “They needed somewhere to hide.”

 

Slowly, the dust sheets started to remove themselves to reveal Zygons underneath. One of them caught hold of McGillop easily. Mickey and Osgood looked to each other.

 

“Run!” he shouted at her. She did.

 

 

***

 

 

⇒ _YOU KNOW WHAT? SHE IS GOOD_

 

Reaching the Black Archive, Martha and Kate were greeted at the door by Atkins. They were led in easily once showing their identifications. Martha had heard of the Black Archive of course, she had clearance herself, but she’d never actually been _inside_. There had never been much cause for her to be. Still, finding it under lock and key was an interesting little shock.

 

“Can't afford electronic security down here. Got to keep the Doctor out.” Kate explained. “The whole of the Tower is Tardis-proofed. He really wouldn't approve of the collection.”

 

Martha read the files and had seen many things sent off to the Black Archives, so that much she could agree on. Kate led her on, past the shelves of weaponry and alien collections and right to the item she herself had been wearing not long ago before the Curator took it from her. He did just as he said he would. Jack’s gadget had been placed in a sort of holding cell.

 

“It was bequeathed to the UNIT archive by Captain Jack Harkness on the occasion of his death.” Kate told her conversationally. “Well, one of them.”

 

“So this is how we are going to help the Doctor?” Martha asked her, following the woman inside to the vortex manipulator.

 

Kate didn’t outright answer her, which in itself was odd, but instead went on as if Martha had never asked her question.

 

“I'm not sure there's enough power for a two-way trip. In any event, we don't have the activation code. The Doctor knows we have this, so he's always kept the code from us. Let's hope he changes his mind.” Kate’s phone went off. “Yes?” she answered. “Well, if you’ve found it, photograph it and send it to my phone.”

 

Kate set the phone down near Jack’s vortex manipulator and started to pace. She spoke to whomever it was rather nastily, Martha thinks to herself. She’d had never heard Kate do that, not to anyone. That’s when she glanced Kate’s assistant and one of the other scientists wandering inside.

 

“They don’t have clearance to be in here.” Martha said knowingly.

 

“Oh, they've probably just finished disposing of the humans a bit early.” Kate chuckled and looked over at Martha. “Dear me. I really do get into character, don't I?”

 

Venom spits up from Kate’s lips and Martha can only stare, horrified, as the woman shifts back into her proper Zygon form. Carefully, without drawing attention, she reaches out for Kate’s phone.

 

“The Under Gallery is secured.” The Zygon who’s taken Osgood’s form reports.

 

The one who had pretended to be Kate is busy informing her two lackey’s that there will be another human to dispose of so it does not take notice when the image sent to Kate’s phone finishes loading. Martha hurries to slip on the vortex manipulator once again and she types in the activation code.

 

“Next time, how about less talking and more doing?” Martha says aloud, grabbing the three Zygon’s attention just before she disappears.

 

 

***

 

 

⇒ _LOCKED IN THE TOWER_

 

River watched silently as the three of them bickered. Three grumpy old men, they were. But it’s the oldest of them, her Doctor, he claims her eye the most. She doesn’t mean for it to happen, she loves every him, but _this_ him… he’s hers and it hurts.

 

“You _forgot_?” his other Self accuses. “Four hundred years, is that all it takes?”

 

“I’ve moved on.” Her Doctor answers, his jaw tight. He’s hiding something. No, that’s an understatement. He’s hiding _everything_. She can see it plain as day.

 

“ _Where_?!” his other Self demands. The heartache and fury is boiling beneath the brim in this one. “Where can you be now that you can forget something like that?!”

 

“Spoilers.” He says, her Doctor, and the way he say it hits her like a bullet to the heart and stuns her breathless.

 

“No.” the younger refuses. “For once I would like to know where I’m going.”

 

“No, you really wouldn’t!”

 

“I don't know who you are,” says the youngest of them yet, “either of you. I haven't got the faintest idea.”

 

“They’re you.” River tells that version, but even then she can feel it’s not entirely her. Someone else’s words are forming in her head and using her as a mouthpiece. “They're what you become if you destroy Gallifrey.” She continues. “The man who regrets and the man who forgets. The moment is coming.” River feels the shared space inside her taking full control. “The Moment is me.” It says, using her own voice. “You have to decide.”

 

“No.” the warrior mutters, defeat in his voice.

 

River only vaguely listens to the rest of the conversation. _Spoilers_ , he’d said, her Doctor. Her attention is not fully recaptured until Martha Jones comes bursting through that so-called prison door, interrupting the squabbling Time Lords.

 

“How did you do that?” the Doctor asks.

 

Martha looks back at the door she just opened and shrugged. “Wasn’t locked.”

 

“Martha.” The one in the pinstripes approaches her. “Good to see you.”

 

“Doctor.” Martha acknowledges and her eyes land on the Warrior. “And… erm, Doctor too I presume?”

 

“All me, yes.” The Doctor says, hands flailing, an attempt to garner attention back on him. River suppresses the urge to grin at the idiot.

 

“So you’re travelling with me again then?” the skinny one says and turns to eye his most recent Self. “You go pick up _my_ companions?!”

 

“ _Your_ companions!” scoffs the Doctor, aghast.

 

“Wait,” Martha interrupts before the two of him can go at it again, “three of you and not one had sense enough to yank at the door?” Martha juts a thumb to the big wooden object in disbelief. “Seriously?”

 

The three Time Lords look ashamed of themselves and River decides then and there that she likes this Martha Jones.

 

“It should have been locked.” The War Doctor answers solemnly.

 

“Well it obviously wasn’t.” says the Doctor. “Why wasn’t it?” he directs to both his other selves, but before any one of them gets to answer Queen Elizabeth the first waltzes in through the prison door.

 

“Because I was fascinated to see what you would do upon escaping.” The Queen revealed. “I understand you're rather fond of this world. It's time I think you saw what's going to happen to it.”

 

 

_***_

 

 

⇒ _IT’S NOT A PLAN, IT’S A THING_

 

“Kate?!” Osgood exhales in relief, pulling the dusty sheet away to reveal the real Kate Stewart. “Oh goodness, you're not actually dead. Oh, that's tremendous news. Those creatures, they turn themselves into copies. And they need to keep the original alive, refresh the image so to speak.”

 

“Where did those creatures go?” Kate demands as Osgood sets her boss free.

 

“I don’t know.” A pause as she thinks it over. “Oh, hang on, yes I do! The Tower.”

 

“Bit dusty under here too!” Shouts Mickey from a few sheets down and Osgood goes to free him while Kate sees to McGillop.

 

“It is good to see you made it out alive.” Mickey tells her with a tired smile.

 

“Oh,” says Osgood, “that’s thanks to you, I’m afraid.”

 

Once all free, Kate confides, “If those creatures have got access to the Black Archive, we may just have lost control of the planet.”

 

Mickey disagrees with the shake of his head. “Not if we’ve got anything to say about it.

 

“What do you propose?” Kate inquires of him. 

 

“The usual,” Mickey replies with a shrug. “If I know the Doctor, we only have one job.”

 

“Which is?” McGillop questioned.

 

“Be at the right place at the right time.” Said Mickey confidently.

 

 

***

 

 

⇒ _PROMISES TO KEEP_

 

After Queen Elizabeth fills them in on the Zygon’s plans Martha has to watch on as the Doctor she personally travelled with gets himself a wife. It’s more than a bit weird.

 

Afterwards, the four of them hurried back into the Tardis.

 

“You’ve let this place go.” Commented the War Doctor, eying the Tardis interior unimpressed.

 

“It’s his grunge phase.” Says the Doctor, bumping his shoulder into Martha’s and cracking a smile. “He’ll grow out of it.” Then he throws the stasis cube he has in hand to her. She catches it. “For safe keeping.” He whispers with a wink.

 

“Don’t you listen to them.” Mutters the other Doctor to his Tardis, almost cooing, until an alarm goes off and he gets a nasty shock. “ _OW_!” he shouts, and the Tardis changes. “The desktop is glitching!”

 

The War Doctor speaks up. “Three of us from different time zones. It’s trying to compensate.”

 

“Hey, look,” the Doctor with the bowtie is jutting a thumb at the walls and smiling like a mad man. “The round things!”

 

“I love the round things.” Admits the one in the Pinstripes.

 

“What are the round things?”

 

“No idea.”

 

Martha watches them all with a smirk on her face. 

 

“Oh dear, the friction contrafibulator. Ha!” Bowtie exclaims and runs around the console, pulling at a lever, and the Tardis changes once again. “There, stabilised.”

 

“Oh,” drawls the Doctor Martha travelled with. “You’ve redecorated. I don’t like it.”

 

“ _Oh_. Oh yeah?" the Doctor raises his non-existent eyebrows, "Oh, you never do.”

 

Martha giggles behind the stasis cube, watching her Doctor sulk as Bowtie goes on about the National Gallery and the Zygons hidden there. Martha thinks it time to mention the situation she’d escaped from earlier, surely leaving those creature in such a place of power presided over the Doctor’s own plans.

 

“Three of them followed Kate and I into the Black Archive, well when I say Kate...” And that only served to garner sour looks from all three of the Doctors. Martha nods, knowing she should probably feel guilty about the things inside the Black Archive but strangely she doesn’t.

 

“Should’ve known you’d know about that.” She says instead.

 

The Doctor she travelled with marches up to her, face hard and frown even harder. He disapproved. “Of course we know about that. The question is, how do you?”

 

It makes her sad to think, give or take a few years back, she’d be cowering away from that frown, despite it all trying to find a way to make it better for him but she never quite managed it. She’d only ever wanted to make him happy. She wasn’t that person anymore. If he wanted someone to save, he’s fresh out of luck here. She'd long ago learned to save herself so he’d have to look elsewhere.

 

"I've worked with UNIT closely." She tells him. "The Black Archive is strictly need-to-know based on rank. I'm high on that list."

 

He relented his glower slightly and Martha spied his other selves. They were adamantly trying to stay out of it, with their shoulders turned and eyes set everywhere but where she was standing.

 

The Doctor in front of her crossed his arms across his chest and leaned a hip against the console . The pinstripes on his suit seemed to glow in the Tardis light and this time he spoke to her conversationally. "How did you manage that, I wonder?"

 

"You." She told him honestly. "UNIT briefs most of us who travel with you, just in case."

 

"Just in case what?" his eyes were set on her, alarmingly brown and unblinking. For an instant she gets the feeling that he can see it all across her face. Where she'd been before she'd arrived at the Tower and the secret that she'd helped Jack smuggle away... his very own daughter. She could tell him everything right then and there. She wanted to.

 

But she'd promised...

 

"Spoilers." Martha said and the Doctor in front of her seemed a shade paler than he was before. She handed over the stasis cube and walked over to his other selves. "Plans?" she asks.

 

"Our only choice is to break in." the Doctor with the bowtie informs her.

 

"It's all Tardis-proofed." Martha reminds.

 

"The Brigadier." Said the War Doctor.

 

"What about him?" Pinstripes finally joins them again and places the stasis cube on the Tardis console. " _Oh_!" he says suddenly, mouth wide and looking at the old man with bright eyes. "I'm getting that! That's  _brilliant_!"

 

"What are you-  _oh_." The Doctor grins widely. "The Space-Time Telegraph, oh, you are-"

 

" _WE_ ," interrupts Skinny Man, looking giddier than he has any right to be.

 

The Doctor rolls his eyes, "Fine! We!  _We_  are really clever!"

 

"What is it? What am I missing?" Martha stares at them all. They're standing there like a bunch of overly satisfied buffoons and making no sense at all.

 

"I think it, they get it too." Explained the War Doctor with a tiny hint of a smile.

 

"Martha," the most recent Doctor addresses her, "Would you know if the Space-Time Telegraph is hidden away inside of the Black Archive?"

 

She shrugs, trying to remember if she saw it anywhere when the fake version of Kate took her inside. Martha nods eventually, "I think so, yeah."

 

"Then we have a call to make." Says Bowtie, spinning around the console with more grace than his limbs deserve and doing just that.

 

 

***

 

 

_**TO BE CONTINUED** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE, for clarity: the next part, which will be part FOUR, will be the final part of the 50th!AU, not the final part of the fic. Thanks for keeping up with this madness.


	21. Twenty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the final part of the 50th!AU. Next chapters carry on as they had before: aka of their own volition. Thank you for sticking with this so far and the next part should be up sooner rather than later. Enjoy. :)

_**Twenty.** _

∴ ** _Gallifrey Falls (_** **NO MORE _)_** ∴

–  PART FOUR  –

 

⇒ _SAVE THE DAY_

 

Mickey, Kate and Osgood hid behind a shelf once inside the Black Archive, letting the monsters think they were alone in order to gain knowledge to what exactly they were up to.

 

“The equipment here is phenomenal. The humans don't realise what half this stuff does. We could conquer their world in a day.” The Zygon with McGillop’s identity commented smugly. “If I were human, I'd say it was Christmas.”

 

Mickey felt now was the time to make their move. He nodded at Kate once, watching as both she and Osgood made their entrance.

 

“No,” Kate Stewart corrected the Zygon, “I'm afraid you wouldn't. We're not armed. You may relax.”

 

Mickey kept an eye out for any sign of the Doctor. If there was any way in, he’d find it. For now, Kate had to distract the monsters. He watched in horror as one of the zygon’s became the exact replica of the Brigadier’s daughter. It shook Kate as well, he could tell, but she kept her cool.

 

Means of distraction soon turned to talks of action, with Kate threatening to set off the nuclear warhead located beneath the city. The longer time goes by with no sign of the Doctor, bluff or not, Kate has no choice in the matter, she activates the countdown.

 

“You would destroy London?” the Zygon questioned, slightly disbelieving of the woman sat across from it.

 

“To save the world?” Kate answered assuredly. “Yes, I would.”

 

“Come on, boss.” Mickey muttered beneath his breath, glancing every which way and praying the Doctor would show up soon. Surely this has gone on far enough.

 

“You’re bluffing.” The Zygon predicted.

 

“You really think so?” pushed Kate. “Somewhere in your memory is a man called Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart. I am his daughter.”

 

Suddenly, a voice came booming throughout the building.

 

“Science leads, Kate.” It said, and Mickey smiled. “Is that what you meant? Is that what your father meant?”

 

“Doctor?” Kate was looking around, trying to find the source of his voice.

 

“Space-Time Telegraph, Kate.” The Doctor informs, as if guessing her reaction. “A gift from me to your father, hotline straight to the Tardis. I know about the Black Archive and I know about the security protocol. Kate, please. Please tell me you are not about to do something unbelievably stupid!”

 

“I’m sorry, Doctor.” Kate says, turning to Osgood and telling her to switch the device off.

 

“Not as sorry as you will be.” Another of the Doctor’s promises. “This is not a decision you will ever be able to live with!”

 

“I said switch it off!” Kate shouts.

 

The Doctor begs Kate to reconsider but Osgood does as she is ordered. The countdown continues.

 

Mickey is helpless as he watches, his guts twisting with anxiety, as Kate and the Zygon go back and forth countermanding the detonation. He can hear Osgood, scared and faintly chanting for some saving. He can’t just do nothing. Turing his eyes to the equipment surrounding him, he picks up the first weapon he finds and readies for the chance to reveal himself. He makes it across to another row of collectables, just set to pass a large covered piece, when a Dalek crashes right out from inside of it. The action takes the cloth covering right off of the item to reveal a painting. The painting he saw once before: Gallifrey Falls.

 

The Zygons have taken notice of the ruckus and come to see for themselves what all the commotion was. They get to see what Mickey sees: the Doctor – or more like three of them – stepping out of the painting with sonics firmly in hand.

 

“Hello.” Greets the eldest of them.

 

“I’m the Doctor.” Says the second.

 

“Sorry about the Dalek.” Replies the third.

 

Martha climbs out of the painting last and Mickey finds himself letting out a breath of complete relief.

 

“Enough chatter,” says Martha, smiling earnestly. “How about you go earn your titles then?”

 

Catching sight of her husband, Martha saunters over to Mickey while the Doctor’s go and do just that. Mickey accepts her with open arms and they stay in an embrace for a few moments.

 

“Sorry we’re late.” She whispers in his ear.

 

“Better late than never.” He whispers back.

 

Smith and Jones pull apart and watch as the Doctor they travelled with and his future version do what the Doctor does best: talk. They manage to spin both human and zygon alike into coming to terms like proper allies. It’s amazing to watch.

 

Martha glimpses the other Doctor, the eldest looking of them, sneaking off around the corner.

 

“I’ll be right back.” She tells Mickey, slipping from his arms and following after this mysterious version of the Doctor.

 

She finds him sitting down, deep in though.

 

“Hi.” She greets the old man.

 

“Hello.” He greets back.

 

Martha motions to the chair in front of him, “Mind if I take a seat?”

 

“By all means, go ahead.” He gestures for her to join him and so she does.

 

“My name is Martha.” She introduces. Seems quite silly, after everything, that she’d barely be making it around to introductions.

 

“I take it we meet in the future.” The War Doctor guesses.

 

“You guess correct.” Nods Martha. “Are you… where are you coming from exactly?” The old man blinks at her but does not make to answer her.

 

“You’re younger than the Doctor I know personally. The one I’ve just met today is eldest of you all, however young he looks. But you… you’re the youngest of them.”

 

“That’s a mighty guess.” He says gravely.

 

Martha smiles. “Only it’s not a guess. I’m a doctor, too.” She tells him. “I know the look.”

 

“And what look might that be?”

 

Martha frowns. “The one where you can’t save everyone. Sometimes, worst cases, you can’t save anyone.” She stares at him. “It’s true, isn’t it? It’s you?”

 

His voice is a rasp. “You’re very sure of yourself.”

 

“I know him.” utters Martha – meaning, I know _you_. “Us doctors, we do what we can, when we can… all we can. And sometimes helping and saving turn out to be two very different thing in the universe.”

 

The man’s eyes get a faraway look in them. “I’m ready.”

 

Martha’s brow wrinkles, “I beg your pardon?”

 

She follows his eyesight past her shoulder and finds nothing there. When she looks back, the War Doctor is gone.

 

 

***

 

 

⇒ _FEAR CAN BRING YOU HOME_

 

“You wanted a big red button.” River says upon his arrival. The button is slightly rose-like, she thinks, the more she looks upon it. “Another big bang," she chuckles, "though I suppose that's a bit spoiler. No more Time Lords, that there is just a fact. Daleks gone too, just sound reasonable." she waits a beat. "Are you sure?”

 

“I was sure when I came here.” The War Doctor tells her. “There is no other way.”

 

“You’ve seen them.” River reminds him.

 

“Those men?” an astonishing smirk appears on the old man’s face. “Extraordinary.”

 

“Good men.” River nods in agreement. “They’re you.”

 

“No,” he corrects. “They are the Doctor.”

 

Her voice is firm as she says, “You are the Doctor, too.”

 

“No.” Denies the War Doctor. “Great men are forged in fire. It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame, whatever the cost.”

 

His hand lifts to hover over the button and River holds her breath. She wants to stop him. To take the choice from him, to take his place. To remove that weight from his tired war-worn shoulders. Because he was never born to be a soldier, while she on the other hand had been made into the perfect one.

 

“You know the sound the Old Girl makes?” she says abruptly, anxieties lessening when he pulls his hand back, away from the button and refocusing on her.

 

He seems perplexed. “Old Girl?”

 

River smiles, “Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know who I’m on about, dear. You’re all hands when you’re with her.”

 

She delights at the small amount of pink that colors his cheeks at that. Her smile turns into a small, private sort of thing the more she thinks back on her own memories of the Tardis.

 

“She wheeze-groans.” River said, recalling the first time she stepped onto the Tardis in Berlin. How she’d stumbled around the alien place, the ship she’d just shot, and she _heard_. Could hear. Mouthing and muttering, all in wheeze-groans, all sounds she understood deep down in her heart of hearts, almost without fail.

 

 _You’re mine,_ the Tardis whispered to her, all those years ago, slipping in through the layers, finding the faulty armor from years of torment, sliding beneath years of hardened skin and a childhood stolen and wrapping around like a wool cloth, safe and warm. All the while River could hear it, hear her, like a heartbeat, like a song, _you’re home_ – she said – _my child, you’re home._

 

River blinks away at the tears gathering behind her eyelids, “That sound. It’s home.”

 

“I like to think so.” The War Doctor agrees, however dejectedly.

 

“Well, sweetie,” River grins, the sound of the time rotor bursts in, amplified within the walls of the barn. “Welcome home.”

 

Two Tardises materialize.

 

 

***

 

 

 

⇒ _AND EVERYTHING ENDS_

 

The Moment appeared beside her.

 

“It’s almost time.” The being possessing Rose Tyler’s face said.

 

“He can’t see me.” She said sadly, watching _her_ Doctor move around, being mad and clever and seemingly having no clue as to her presence.

 

“You have to choose,” urged the entity, still managing to appear ominous as ever. “He has. Now it’s your turn.”

 

“Why am I here?” River pressed yet again. “Why me?”

 

The Moment’s eyes gleamed and River saw behind the façade, a glimpse of the infinite power that was playing host to her own visage. She felt faint with the power, how it joined with her own vitality and simmered beneath her skin. The feeling was all powerful and everlasting… like a god.

 

“Why you and Rose Tyler? I think it’s rather obvious.” The Moment gave her a grimace. “And quite human, if you don’t mind me saying.”

 

“There’s rarely a gift without a sacrifice.” River said knowingly. “So what’s the catch? Who died for me to be resurrected?”

 

“Look at him.” the Moment replied instead, eyes on the Time Lord and his other selves. The three of them, saving Gallifrey. “He’s saved his planet and all he needed to do was look back at something he was scared of. What scares you, Professor Song? What moves you to do impossible things?” she leaned in closer to River, whispering, “What did you leave behind and are struggling to look back upon, all these years that you’ve been long dead and gone?”

 

River’s thoughts drift to her daughter. Sweet and little Minerva was, last time she saw of her. She’d entrusted her little girl onto Jack Harkness. It was all such a very long time ago now….

 

She feels the sudden rush of pressure building in her chest. The Moment’s own orbs start burning brighter than River has ever seen them.

 

There’s the faintest urge to scream when a prickle of fire she recognizes as her humanity starts to fizzle beneath her skin. Vaguely, she recalls another instance of this happening. An agonized longevity came attached to such things: sitting down, connecting wires, _him_ , tears, the igniting of sparks that lit her out in the end – she didn’t scream then either. She should have.

 

“I bring life.” The weapon repeated for what looked to be the final time, and River began to _burn_.


	22. Twenty-One.

**_Twenty-One._ **

 

The Captain had been staring face first at the end of his timeline for a few years now and he knew it. Hell, this far along he’d accepted death a long time ago, only the big guy didn’t seem to be answering any phone calls from one Captain Jack Harkness.

 

Stepping back into his past had been fun, he could admit that. Sending Martha Jones to the Doctor gave him a much needed moment of realism. For them, the truth of Gallifrey was to be discovered and a whole new point in the Doctor’s life would open up, a whole new chapter. Personally, for or him, well… he’d lived this far and he’d survived.

 

Minerva had been entrusted onto him such a long time ago and with the time they spent together memories he’d thought long dead remerged. The time spend with River Song’s daughter brought back instances of his own daughter, Alice. She had hidden herself from him in the begging, and with good reason too. They had not parted on the best of terms. He’d made a silent vow, from the very first day Minerva’s mother had charged him with the life of her own flesh and blood, to protect her.

 

In the year he and Minerva spent gallivanting across time and space, breaking all sorts of galactic laws simply by doing what they had to, it turned into more than just settling debts and cashing in on favors. He could never fix what had happened with his own daughter but with Mins at his side Jack Harkness had become a father again. He had been resolute not to let another daughter down.

 

Mins had been a short, shy little creature at first. Her hair a mousy brown would fall into her face easily and when that shyness died away she proved to be very quick witted. She was clever, far too clever for the likes of him. Of course, the girl was all over his timeline, just like that mother of hers – family ties and all.

 

The last he’d seen of her, in his time, he was handing her over to her grandparents in New York. He’d left Amy and Rory Williams’s home with a heavy heart, but the deed was done. He did as he was asked. It was only right that he moved on.

 

They had been waiting for him in the future, when he got back. Surprise, surprise. Then along came the whole being captured and tortured thing, which really wasn’t that big of a deal in the whole scheme of things since he couldn’t exactly die, except there was a big problem. The bit of computer work that remained locked away in his head, for instance. Had that information been divulged by his captors every single person and/or species involved would have been in a whole world of trouble. Good old Library backup had shown up in the nick of time though, impeccable timing as always.

 

He doesn’t remember passing out while the Keeper Of the Library removed any traces of viable data that existed in his head. In truth, he was just glad the enemy could no longer use it against them. By the time he woke up Oswin was gone and someone very different had been waiting for him.

 

She’d been sitting there when he came back to life, filing down her nails with a pair of guards passed out at her feet.

 

“Oh, Jack.” River Song had drawled, a hint of a smile on her ruby-red colored lips. “This really is just your kind of party.”

 

She wasn’t one he’d come across before. There was something different about her, something he realizes now that only he could recognize. It was in the skin and it called.

 

The many thoroughly abused parts of his body had protested at his efforts to communicate, but he didn’t care. Only he knew the horrors she was to face standing there as she was now: alive.

 

“Oh, River, no.” he’d huffed out, pained.

 

“Today is not the day you die, Captain.” River told him firmly as she stood.

 

“Not on your watch anyway.” He cracked back at her but the attempted jest just couldn’t reach his spirit.

 

“Would you want to know?” River had asked him upon releasing him from his chains. “If the final hour was not yet here, but would be soon, would you want to know of it?”

 

Jack smiled at his long lost friend.

 

“River Song,” he rasped, “I haven’t seen you since I identified your body in the Library, let’s not talk about _it_ just yet.”

 

She had given him a single nod and then proceeded to help him out one step at a time.

 

He hadn’t been one bit surprised to see she disabled the entire torture ship to get to him either.

 

That was _then_ , however, and this… well, this is _now_.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

River looked out the window of her newly bought flat and up at the dark, starry night. Captain Jack would arrive any second now with her daughter, he said he would, and he had not failed her so far.

 

She couldn’t help the shiver that ran down her spine, nor the uneasiness that accompanied her every waking moment. That’s not to say her unconscious hours had been any better. She sleeps, a wink here and there, but not because it helps. She’s human-plus, or she used to be… before….

 

Sleeping is habit mostly but when she sleeps, she remembers. And she burns.

 

She wakes in a fright, much like her childhood. Her body alert and breathing coming to her in hiccups, loud gasps that she’s sure are louder in her head than they are to the ear. Sometimes she screams, but that’s only happened a handful of times and she’s determined to keep it that way.

 

She’s terrified most of the time, actually. That’s new. She supposes she’s owed the screaming though. She never screamed much in her latter years, before she died, not even when she died. She deserves some hysteria for once. She deserves much in this new life, she thinks.

 

The more she waits, the longer time that goes by, and the more she can see why he cannot know. At first she’d thought _not yet, he’s not ready_ , but she had been wrong.

 

With another sigh, she closes the blinds and retreats back into the space of her new home. Not for the first time since she’s been back does she realize, with a painful jolt to her heart, that she wishes her own mum and dad were there.

 

It had been easier with Amy and Rory always an option to her. She’s alone now. She paces the rooms and waits.

 

“Always with the waiting.” She says quietly to none but herself and looks down at her own hands, flexing them experimentally. They look normal. She knows better.

 

River tries to get a handle on the situation. Her daughter will be here soon. She must be ready.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

Martha Jones found herself back at the museum. The Doctor, or she should say Doctor _s_ , had taken off again. They had saved Gallifrey, the three of them.

 

She’d been there too. It was the most recent self that had offered her the trip, with his bowtie and too large chin. It was like a wonderful dream. She’d always wanted to see the Doctor’s home planet. Now she had, and now he was gone again.

 

She’d told Mickey all that had happened with Captain Jack when they were alone and the Doctor out of sight. She relayed of the state Minerva had been in, of how she’d lost Jenny. How devastating it all had been, the darkest just before the dawn.

 

“Martha Jones.” The Curator called, breaking her from her thoughts.

 

“Doctor.” She greeted back quietly.

 

The old man sat down beside her and tapped his cane on the tiled floor, waiting patiently.

 

“I just,” Martha paused, wrestling with indecision. She wanted to know she did the right thing by not telling the Doctor of his daughters after saving Gallifrey. Letting him fly off again. It was weighting on her conscience and since this Doctor, the one who called himself the Curator, said he was there to help, she intended to bank in on that comment.

 

“Since you’re obviously later in time,” she tried again after a few moments of trying to find the right words, “well, I figured to ask you something.”

 

“Ever heard of spoilers, my dear?” asked the Curator, watching her curiously. “There are very many spoilers in my timeline. Dreadful, pesky, little things. They can drive you mad.”

 

“Yes!” She agreed wholeheartedly. “I just need to know that you’re… are you happy?”

 

The Curator smiled.

 

“Martha, Martha, Martha.” He uttered. “I’m the oldest version I’ve ever been. I can tell you, with the upmost certainty, that happiness is not a permanent in my life, nor will it ever be, but I can assure you, days come along that are the best I’ve ever known.” He sighed and patted her hand. “And yes, to put your mind at rest, all because you did not tell me then. Had I have known, well, who knows, eh?”

 

A mad Cheshire grin broke out on his old face, and Martha smiled too.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

It’s very far off in the year he’s come to. The Earth has been gone on account of the sun expanding and the planet Jack has smuggled Mins into is a much underrated one. River laid in wait of their arrival, ready as he’d ever seen her.

 

His own wounds still healing, Jack could only watch as River set her daughter up in place to do what had to be done. River had built an exact replica of the Chameleon Arch located in the Tardis.

 

It’s pretty damn obvious she’s regenerated since he’d last seen her. Her hair is as red a color as that grandmother he’d left her with. Jack knows the procedure is not painless, but there the Doctor’s daughter lies, sleeping silently through the worst of it.

 

“Thank you,” River tells him eventually, when it’s all said and done and they are both staring down at her daughter. IV’s are lined, hooked to the girl’s arms, and the home-made monitors in the room beeping are not in the least reassuring.

 

“You’re welcome.” He replies softly. “What happens when she wakes up?”

 

“Well, when the cells are modified and properly changed, I’ll check her into hospital properly. She’ll have but one heart to show for by that time. Then, we’ll settle down I suppose.” River looked back to Jack, a sad smile on her face. “We hide.”

 

Jack raised a brow, finding this hard to believe. “No more running?”

 

River moved over to the bed her daughter was bundled up in and sat down beside her, pushing back the red locks from her face. “He won’t look for us here. He can’t.”

 

“You, settling down.” He laughed, albeit nervously. “Sounds completely wrong.”

 

“You could stay.” River offered him. “You could hide too. I’m sure she’d love to have you here.”

 

“I can’t.” he said, trying and failing to keep the smile on his face. “But it is nice of you to offer, Melody Pond.”

 

River stood and went over to him. Her voice was a low murmur, “Then this is goodbye.”

 

“That it is.” He agreed, hugging River back when she reached for him. They stayed that way for quite a while. Jack eventually moved out of her arms and over to place a quick kiss to Mins’s brow.

 

Jack shook his head at the crazed reality of it all. He never thought he’d live to see the day River Song would settle down, and he’d especially not seen it happening on a remote planet as bland as Trenzalore.

 

He supposes some things just happen to be worth standing still for.

 

“Just so you know,” he informed River casually, “I’m sending postcards until… well, you know, until it happens. Don’t expect me to just drop out of the universe like that old man of yours. I’m going to keep in contact this time.”

 

River indulged him a smile. “Of course, Captain. So long as you only use the aliases.”

 

He promised, leaving the Doctor’s girls with not so much as another glance. Jack had no intention of being around when Mins woke up. He never did agreed to add her name onto the list of his goodbyes, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. River is back and there's another appearance by Tom Baker's Curator. Hope it was enjoyable for you. :)


	23. Twenty-Two.

**_Twenty-Two._ **

 

The Doctor lands in Vastra’s sitting room in a hurry. Once out of the Tardis doors, he sees there are skid marks to show for his carelessness but he’s too jubilant to pay it any mind. He’d just saved Gallifrey and he needed to tell _someone_!

 

Jenny Flint is the first to come into the room, eyes instantly widening in horror at the mess he’s made of her wife’s impeccable floor.

 

The Doctor rushes up to her in an instant and takes her in his arms. He picks her up and spins her around, laughing happily all the while. By the time he places her back down she’s stiff as a board.

 

“Doctor,” she acknowledges, smoothing down her dress and easing the crinkles away from being picked up so abruptly. “You’re back.”

 

“Where is everyone?” he asks, clasping his hands together excitedly. “I’ve some news.”

 

“Strax is out with Vastra.” Informs Jenny. “We’ve got a new case.”

 

“Oh,” the Doctor mutters, a frown joining his features. His elation of spreading his good news dampens upon hearing of these most recent activities.

 

A new case for Vastra meant all focus was to be poured into said case and so distractions are the last thing his friends need at the moment.

 

“Okay then,” he says instead, decidedly tucking his particular news away for later, “tell me of this new case.”

 

“It’s full of dead ends.” Jenny reveals while she readies a cup of tea for the both of them. “Wouldn’t want to bore you.”

 

“Nonsense!” the Doctor exclaims, now taken to sitting on Vastra’s comfy cushioned armchair in waiting. “Tell me all about it. I want to hear it.”

 

Jenny eyes him warily at first, unsure of how to take his budding interest in their lives, but Vastra’s wife continues eventually.

 

“It’s weird,” she states, handing over his cuppa. He accepts it readily, raising a non-existent eyebrow while he’s at it.

 

“Weird, you say.” He sniffs at the cup before taking a drink from it. “How so?”

 

“You really must be bored.” Says Jenny with a laugh.

 

The Doctor frowns. “You are my friends. Very good ones and better than I deserve, admittedly. And I do…” he sighs heavily, “ _care_ , you know.”

 

Jenny shakes her head apologetically, “I didn’t mean it like that, Doctor. It’s just… you hop about sporadically. In and out of our lives, you go. It’s not bad, it’s just you. We’ve long accepted it. It’s nothing wrong with it.”

 

“Perhaps there should be.” The Doctor shrugs. “Maybe I should stick around for a bit. Maybe I could…” he plays with the handle of his cup, somewhat nervous about this sudden proposal that’s taken place in his head. “Maybe I could stay.”

 

“Stay here?” Jenny blurts, eyes wide and disbelieving.

 

“Yes, here.” The Doctor nods his head up and down. “I’d be great. I’ve been a flat mate before! With raving reviews, I might add. His name’s Craig, give him a call if you don’t believe me.”

 

Jenny watches him, sat down on Vastra’s favorite armchair. Perceptive as she can be, she sees it. Just hanging there. In his eyes, straining on top of his shoulders, if one looks close enough it’s everywhere.

 

“You’re lonely,” she guesses, “Aren’t you?”

 

“Aren’t we all?” he poses to her, inhaling deeply before taking another sip of his drink.

 

She doesn’t want to prod, but neither does she want to leave him if he needs an ear. She’d listen, if he wanted.

 

Not for the first time does Jenny wish that wife of his were around. She’d turn him back on the right path. Fix him right up, River would. She’d take no nonsense from him either. Jenny feels that isn’t her place though, and so she offers the Doctor another cup instead. He accepts with a nod.

 

“We’ll speak more on what you said when the wife gets home.” Jenny promised when she hands him his second cup.

 

“Thank you, Jenny.” An odd look passes across the Time Lord’s face. “Knew a girl with your name once.” He shares unexpectedly. “She’s out there, waiting for me to catch up.”

 

He looks so concentrated on that, his face tense with the unresolved. Jenny can see the miles and miles of questions he has, all wanting of answers.

 

“I need to find her.” He states, a finality and desperation drag along with his words.

 

“You will.” Asserts Vastra’s wife, it’s all she can think to do to help him. That’s what his companions do, don’t they? Believe.

 

“Now drink your tea.” She orders before pointing to the marks on the floor his Tardis was responsible for. “You’ve also got to do something about that before anyone else lays eyes upon it.”

 

“Don’t worry,” says the Doctor, winking, “I’ve got an idea.”

 

Despite his assurances, Jenny worries.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

She blinks. Once, twice... she keeps them shut after that. The light is too bright to see. She dreams of odd things and even odder places. Voices cloud in and out of her head, she doesn't even know what they mean or how they got there or if they are real. It’s only when she opens her eyes again that she realizes she doesn't know who she is, or where she is, but she is not alone.

 

A woman is sitting at her bedside, a woman with hair that curls and curls. It is satisfying, she realizes, this hair that is impossible and big. It calms the panic.

 

“Where am I?” she asks, her voice sounding hoarse and broken.

 

The woman smiles, “You’re in hospital.” The woman gets up to retrieve a cup from the tray placed the end of what is apparently _her_ hospital bed. “You’ve been asleep for quite some time.” Says the woman, coming up to the edge of her bedside and urging the cup towards her. “It will help your throat if you have some water.” The woman says.

 

She blinks up at this stranger. “Who are you?”

 

The woman swallows, smiles.

 

“My name is Melody Williams.” The woman says. “One could say I’m your caretaker. Of course, there are other words for what I am to you.” The woman sits down and reaches for her hand. It feels warm. “Your name is Katerina Williams. You’ve been in an accident and you’ve lost your memory.”

 

“Williams.” She says, and can’t help recalling something or other, a face to the name, or a nose, but then it’s all gone before she can grasp at it. Her head hurts.

 

“Yes.” Says the woman, Melody. “It hurts, I know.”

 

Her voice is soft and richly vivid for some reason. It seems the only thing that’s real. _Safe_.

 

“But it won’t hurt forever.” Melody continues. “I promise you that.”

 

“You said there’s another word.” She interrupts Melody. The woman's brow furrows. “For what you are to me,” she clears up, noticing a necklace around her neck. There’s a small trinket-like pocket watch hanging on the chain.

 

Melody grabs her chin gently, forcing her attention away from the necklace. She smiles down at her, it’s a sad one too.

 

“Once upon a time, you used to…” this Melody woman pauses and unshed tears fill her eyes, “You used to call me… mummy.”


	24. Twenty-Three.

**_Twenty-Three._ **

 

Katerina, her mother – Melody – said, was her name. She didn’t much feel like a Katerina, but then again, she didn’t _not_ feel like a Katerina. However, the wrong feelings are soon abated. Melody would smooth them over with a look or a comforting touch or with her voice.

 

That voice, Katerina swears there’s nothing more comforting that voice. Or that hair. No matter how many questions there are in her head right now or how she feels a dire disconnect towards _something_ important, she knows for certain that she is safe. She is home.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

River watches Minerva very closely, in awe as much as concern. The dark brown hair that used to be all her father is now turned a fiery red and her brown eyes are now a pale blue. She wonders how it happened, if Amy and Rory were there. She hopes they were. She dreads to think of her daughter going through regeneration alone.

 

She has questions, this daughter of hers, but the girl is determined not to voice them. It’s all over her face. This face River does not know. Minerva is trying to make sense of all these things unknown to her. Perhaps, River assumes, it’s the miniature fob watch draped around her daughter’s necklace that is keeping her so pleasantly in the dark. One can only hope….

 

“Are you hungry?” River asks the girl, or rather, woman. But River tries not to think about that, about the time missed, not now. She will always only be River’s little girl though, no matter what age.

 

Minerva’s stomach rumbles loudly at the question and her eyes widen, embarrassed. River chuckles at the expression, those wide rounded eyes are more familiar to her than she’d like to admit. She’s seen them on another face, the face of Minerva’s father. To be reminded of something, someone, she’s trying to move past, so blatantly and so effortlessly, it is like a knife to the heart.

 

Minerva’s voice fills the room unexpectedly.

 

“Why are you so sad?” the girl asks, and River is suspended by the root of her lies.

 

It hadn’t always been easy to lie, no, but she’d done it for the greater good. She lied to Amy and Rory and the Doctor. Now, however, looking her daughter in the face, it’s _harder_. Had it always been this hard and she’d just forgotten? Well, River learned early on that it had always been best to sweeten a lie with a bit of truth. So she did.

 

“You’ve been gone from me for a long time.” She tells Minerva. “I’m just glad to have you back again.”

 

Minerva stared at her, as if processing her answer. Slowly, she nodded and agreed. “I don’t know why, but I almost feel I could say the same about you.”

 

River smiled, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye before it fell.

 

“Now, dear, let’s not get into it now. Your tummy needs feeding,” River proclaimed, “and mummy is here to fix you right up.”

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

“So what do you think?!” the Doctor asks Vastra, arms gesturing to the new floorboards in her sitting room.

 

Jenny and Strax were nowhere to be seen, as they knew better than to be caught up in this particular conversation.

 

“You…” Madame Vastra looked to him and then to the floorboards, speechless for longer than she’d like to admit. “Doctor,” she demanded, “what exactly are you doing here?”

 

The Doctor frowned, his arms drooping down to his sides. “I came to stay. Obviously.”

 

Vastra blinked at the Time Lord. “I thought you had a daughter to find.”

 

“Well,” the Doctor shrugged, “time is going nowhere and I’ve not dropped in for a while. I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

 

“I am.” Vastra corrected his assuming tone. “But you’ve also just redone my entire living space without my consent, so you must forgive my utter shock.”

 

The Doctor threw his hands up in the air, “I was just trying to be nice! See this wood,” he got down on his knees and knocked on Vastra’s new floor, “I got it from a very important person. In fact I-”

 

“Try flowers next time.” Vastra suggested, taking off her veil. “And, if you don’t mind me saying, it sounds like you’re running from your own future again. We all know how that turned out the first time, don’t we?”

 

The Doctor straightened his bowtie at that. “So the answer is no? To the staying for a bit?”

 

“Old friend,” Vastra chuckled, “If you had any incentive of actually staying, I’d be the first to welcome you to our home. But you aren’t going to stay, we both know this.”

 

The Doctor watched Vastra, wondering how exactly she’s gotten so good at reading him. “What do you suggest I do then?”

 

Madame Vastra shrugged, “Perhaps answer your phone.”

 

“Pardon?”

 

The reptilian woman sighed, “If you’d answer you phone more often, that Jack Harkness would have less cause to harass me about you. So please, do us all a favor: stop picking out new floorboards I don’t need, and…. Answer. Your. Bloody. Phone.”

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

“Knock, knock.” Came a voice unheard of before, as the door of her hospital room was pushed open. A woman she’d never seen before walked in with a massive (almost maniacal) grin on her face. “Awake now? How _splendid_!”

 

Katerina eyed the woman cautiously. “My mother will be back soon.”

 

“Oh, yes, of course dear. I saw her, in fact.” Says the woman, taking a seat where her mother had been seated and crossing her legs. “Yes, passing down the corridor. Off to get you something or other.”

 

The mysterious woman smiled happily, winking before taking out a clipboard Katerina had not noticed she’d in hand. “I’m just here to take down a few things. Hospital policies, you see. I’m Head of Hospital in Trenzalore Treatment. I just got in. The old head, well, he’s gone now. So what I need now is this information here, yet unknown. Simple, painless little details you have yet to give us. Help me to help you, hmm?”

 

“I’ve lost some of my memory, least that’s what they tell me.” Katerina sat up straighter in her bed. “But I can try to answer whatever you need.”

 

“Yes, you can.” The woman’s eyes went comically wide and her hand reached out to the tiny fob watch hanging around her neck. “What a lovely necklace,” commented the stranger, her features turning into an almost glare before softening yet again. “Have you ever tried to open it?”

 

Katerina shook her head and shrugged. “It’s jammed. It’s always been jammed.”

 

“Pity.” The woman dropped the fob watch and took attention back to the clipboard. “Well, then. Shall we start with, _oh_! Oh, yes. Mhmm. We’ll need this information.” Her eyes set on the young girl, and a Katerina couldn’t help feel a chill come along with the attention. The woman’s voice was sing-song when she asked, “Your father’s name?”

 

Katerina blinked at the question. She quickly realized with a starling sense that she really had no idea.

 

“I…” her lips stayed parted before she finally decided on uttering, “I don’t know.”

 

“Horrible, isn’t it?” said the stranger, frowning overdramatically. Then, her bright red lips curled upward in a menacing way. Katerina felt something press into her hand and then came a slight dizzying feeling.

 

“You think on that,” the woman’s voice echoed all around and Katerina’s eyes could barely stay open. “And when you feel ready, you just come find me.” The woman’s smile was all teeth and she felt foreign fingers pushing back her hair and playing with the strands. “It’s so rude of him not to tell you. Rude of both of them really. They forgot me, sins of the father and all. But you won’t, will you? You can be mine, and I can be yours.”

 

“Who are you?” Katerina just barely whispered, her vision growing so hazy and her mind filling with such a density that she could hardly put any of her words together.

 

“Why, I’m your Auntie.” the stranger answered wickedly. “Just call me… Auntie Missy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, yes, I brought the (she)Master into the mix. Because the show brought him/her back and Michelle Gomez!Master is [spectacular](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LndPKxKgGYY) and [delicious](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAx0JBPH77c) and let's be honest, the truth is: life is just so much more fun when he/she is around. I mean, what better excuse do I need than the Master coming to fuck shit up/ruin River's plans to stay hidden via intents to corrupt Mins(Katerina)? Why not?
> 
> And to put things into perspective (given some recent upset) this IS a River/Doctor fic. It's getting there. Slow-build happens. Meaning, it's slowly being built up. If that's not your thing I completely understand and you have every right to get off of this ride, but in order to tell this story the best way I can, I cannot with good conscience leave any parts out/rush the plot for the endgame to happen sooner. I hope most of you can understand that because this fic would have gotten nowhere without the loyal readers. But as I said, your choice. Thank you.


	25. Twenty-Four.

**_Twenty-Four._ **

 

“Oh, wakey-wakey, Captain,” the mousy, self-satisfied voice calls, tapping on Jack Harkness’s nose – just because. “I believe it is time for another phone call.”

 

Jack comes to, blinking up at his captor’s face. She’s out of his view for a second or two and he tries to regain some semblance of consciousness during that time, but then she’s back.

 

“Now, don’t look at me like that.” Says Missy as she walks around the immaculate medical room, flapping her doctor’s coat this way and that as she moves. “It really isn’t my fault you got caught and imprisoned all over again.”

 

Oh, that’s right. He’s been tied down to a hospital bed, legs and wrists bound, monitors beeping eerily beside him.

 

They, whoever they are, ambushed him a block away from River’s new place the night he’d delivered her daughter back to her.

 

“That woman saved you from one prison and here you are, landing yourself in another of sorts. My own blue heaven.” The mad lady basically breathes out those last words, dazed with the idea somehow. “Don’t be embarrassed, love.” She tells him. “You made it _so_ very easy, after all. Jumping all around the universe with that thing,” Missy taps at the vortex manipulator still strapped to his wrist with one fingernail. “Someone was bound to notice, silly goose.”

 

She’s off to the sidelines again, doing god knows what.

 

“You keep your crazed mitts off of my stuff.” Jack grits out, as vicious as possible. There’s not much more he can do since she’s paralyzed from the neck down. He can hear her messing with some sort of equipment for a short while longer.

 

Missy is frowning unhappily when she turns around again. She saunters right back up to Captain Jack’s bedside, every step she takes forward is precisely placed. It’s as if she were performing in a play and every single movement or emotion she gives is a part of the grand act.

 

“You don’t remember me, do you?” she asks, her hands grabbing his face gently in their grasp.

 

“Lady,” Jack glares, “I’ve never met you.”

 

“Oh, but you have.” Insists Missy, a devilish glint picks up in her eye. She leans down until their noses align and she brushes hers against his. “I kept you like this once before,” she tells him, her voice sounds almost intimate. “Tied up,” she continues, “only I didn’t have the good sense to paralyze you back then. I know better know. Go on,” she goads, and he can see the needle she’s pulling out of her doctor’s coat, “think on it.”

 

She presses a barely-there kiss to his temple before moving back a bit for him to look upon. Jack looks at her eyes, her mouth, her face… nothing rings a bell.

 

Missy seems to get rather impatient with his lacking recognition and rolls her eyes.

 

“Alright,” she huffs, making a theatrical sweep back and fluttering her eyelashes dramatically. She puts down the syringe she’s got a hold of and her hand comes up to rests atop her breast. “I’ll give you a hint, Captain, but only one, because old friends deserve to have our proper reunion,” her bright red lips curl up in a smile, all teeth, “and then you make your phone call. My dear Doctor has a house call he won’t want to miss.”

 

Missy inhales before thumping her hand over her chest in four dramatic pats. Jack eyes her oddly, because he’s encountered weird and yet she is by far the weirdest he’s come cross.

 

But then the pats keep going, and he can see her mouth moving, counting _one-two-three-four_ , _one-two-three-four_ , _one-two-three-four…._

 

Slowly, her silent chant and the pats start to sync in a way that make him more than uncomfortable.

 

Jack Harkness’s eyes widen, as does Missy’s smile.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

Katerina dreams. She dreams of orange skies and mountains shining and a field of friendships. No, she dreams of _a_ friendship. Of a little boy, but she doesn’t know why. He’s coaxing her along, reaching for her hand and she takes it without hesitance. And they run down the field. Hand in hand. And they laugh and she’s overwhelmed with the wanting.

 

She thinks it is the little boy. The word ‘ _master’_ keeps echoing in her head, perhaps he is the master of all these things. That he makes her want these things, because _he_ wants them. So does that mean she wants them at all? It’s all so jumbled, so confusing, so intertwined.

 

Then the explosions start. And the mass hysteria. And there may be war, a story unfolding, and she can see them. The boy runs, and she sees why he runs. From them, from his people. And there are things that she can’t explain, ugly things, thing that are too much, things she doesn’t want, and some she can’t quite find reason as to why she does.

 

There is also a man. A man this boy hates, a man the boy loves. A man who held the boy when he died, who begged him to stay alive. This man is a shadow, he may even be a doctor. But he is a shadow more than anything, a shadow that maybe proves this friendship is not hers to have. Something else is pulling. The pull is stronger than the shadow, telling her that the shadow does not matter.

 

It comes to her suddenly that he changes, this boy, the boy she was focused on before. He changes faces in a burst of light. It seems almost natural to her, but how could it be? How could she not have realized this? How had she looked past every form this boy has taken and still know it was him? He’s a man, until he’s not. Until he’s a woman.

 

There is no sense to it, nothing that makes a damn sense. And yet everything inside of Katerina is screaming: _just like me_.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

River’s breather is longer than she’d intended. She’d left to get her daughter some food, only now she’s trapped herself in the hospital toilets crying her eyes out.

 

She misses her home in Luna, and her parents, and she misses _him_. She wishes she didn’t, but she does. She misses the Doctor the most. No matter how ridiculous, or how much pain he caused her in the end, how much pain he can still cause her, she wants him with her. Because he’s always with her, even when he’s not. This ridiculous situation is proof enough of that.

 

Her hands… she looks at them and frowns. They are not hers, not really. When she got back, everything felt off. She knows why now, what is different. It has happened several times not to accept it. There are startling thing she starts to wonder, there, locked in the hospital toilets. Would he know at first glance? Would he hate what she is now? Would he look at her like a ghost again because of it?

 

River snaps out of it. She has to pull herself together. She knows this. Her daughter is in human form for the time being and though Mins is compliant at the moment things will become difficult sooner rather than later, she doesn’t doubt that.

 

She picks herself up and wipes her tears away as quickly as possible, making sure she looks presentable before exiting the area. Mins is waiting, on an empty stomach. River has to be strong. For her daughter, if not for herself. She will.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

The Doctor bustles back into his Tardis, slamming the doors behind him. He’s not angry, not really, but Vastra had read him like a book in there and no one should be able to do that. He can’t _allow_ himself to be readable. It will do him no good when he’s got a plan he has to hide.

 

He supposed he’s not had much practice in hiding things anymore. It’s not like he’s got a companion around to hide things from and the thought of another one sort of still turns his stomach. He’ll pass on that idea for another century or two, leave it for when he’s actually ready.

 

Vastra’s parting reminder comes back to him. What exactly had she said again? Oh, yes. _Answer your bloody phone._ The Doctor harrumphs at the memory, wandering over to the phone hanging on the console and picking it up.

 

It takes him all of a few seconds to find out how to play back any messages that have been recorded and he’s surprised to find more than a hundred are left in waiting. He gets the Tardis to play them out loud as he pilots them into the vortex and then takes to wandering the halls, fixing this and that along the way. The voice interface of little Amelia Pond pops up after every message, asking if he wants it deleted.

 

Several of the people calling want help, or need saving, the usual. Most of them are over deadline so he can’t really act on them. Of course, it turns out to be the final message that catches the Doctor’s attention most.

 

 _Doctor,_ the voice of his old companion echoes in the Tardis, _It’s Captain Jack Harkness._

The Doctor smiles, remembering the Face Of Boe speaking of their paths to cross again.

 

 _I know about Gallifrey,_ Jack’s message relays.

 

The Doctor’s not so surprised about that.

 

Jack’s message continues, _and I know where to find it._

 

The voice interface of little Amy shows up again and says, “Voice message complete. Shall I plan deletion?”

 

“Well,” the Doctor gulps, nodding at little Amy, “I, for one, did not see that coming.”

 

“Voice message complete.” Repeats the interface. “Shall I plan deletion?”

 

“You are so Scottish,” the Doctor utters at the image. “Do not delete,” he orders, “manufacture the exact coordinates. I want to see where Jack was calling from.”

 

“Message pulled into storage. Coordinates being extracted.” Little Amelia’s interface says. “Coordinates found.”

 

“Wonderful!” the Doctor springs towards the console and pulls the monitor towards him when he gets there. “Show me.” he requests.

 

And there it is. The name that twists his stomach into bits. The coordinates point him straight to Trenzalore.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here we have Missy alluding to the [never-ending drums](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxeoLhLdqnQ) from her last incarnation to speed Jack up on who she is, and then her implanting memories via dreams of her and the Doctor into Katerina's (Mins's) mind... eh, what could go wrong really?
> 
> Given this fic has gone way past AU status (no Clara and all) this is your reminder that I AM going on a different direction with the whole Trenzalore arc. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this chapter. ;)


	26. Twenty-Five.

**_Twenty-Five._ **

 

Shaking his head at the information the Tardis monitor was showing him, a single word manages to escape the Doctor’s lips.

 

“No.”

 

His voice echoed, louder than the pounding of his beating hearts. He shook his head, furiously denying what was there, looking right back at him. The Tardis, pointing him to Trenzalore, while the voice of Dorium Maldovar consumes him, filling his head much too clearly, standing out from the depth of his memories.

 

_On the Fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely, or fail to answer, a question will be asked. A question that must never, ever be answered._

 

“No,” the Doctor said again, shoving the monitor away and out of his sight.

 

Jack could not have called from this planet – his mind tries to reason – the man has no business there. It was a mistake, surely.

 

He feels numbed by the events starting to fall together piece by piece in the direction he’s being led ever so strategically. Not taken where he wants to go, no, never, but instead dragged where he needs to go.

 

The Doctor wanders to the stairs at the console and sits himself down. He’d just saved Gallifrey, with two of his other selves. It wasn’t supposed to end now, like this. He wants more time. If anything, to ask why and why _now_? But the questions taste old and much too overused in his mouth and there is no one left to ask. There are ghosts, but even they don’t answer him anymore.

 

He feels the Tardis thrumming all around him but she’s never sounded so discomforting, and he’s never felt so far away, never more alone.

 

Of course, he’s far too occupied with his own thoughts of the planet that’s been looming over his entire future. The Tardis is smart, however. She downloads the most important image onto the screen, the one that will catch attention more than any other. The image of a ship stolen long ago from Messaline in July of 6012, archived into holding by a source from inside the Library, and then stolen again from that safe holding by an unknown.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

Jack Harkness’s struggles had been futile. They still are.

 

“You should be dead!” he shouts at her, positively seething.

 

“Oh, but I was.” Missy assures him, readying the syringe she’d had at hand and flicking it twice before pricking him with it. She sets it down. “You will get the Doctor to come here, somehow, someway. Make it up, if you have to,” Missy instructs before she leans forward, lips at his ear, and whispers, “Or I’ll kill the both of them.”

 

Pulling back, she sees the terror break across his features. It makes her hearts beat faster, knowing she’s won over his full cooperation.

 

“And you,” she fixes his shirt collar, hand smoothing over the fabric covered with various bloodstains, “my old-time captive, you fail me and you will get to watch. Are we clear?”

 

She doesn’t wait for his answer. Doesn’t have the time for it, more like.

 

Missy walks away, her heels clanking on the hospital tile loud and proud in a way that pleases her immensely. The Time Lords may have given her the drums, so long ago now, but she rather likes the idea of controlling dreams so much better.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

Her mother is there when she opens her eyes again.

 

“Hello, sweetie,” says Melody, a soft smile spreading across her face, “I popped out and you went right to sleep. The food’s gone cold now, I’m afraid. I can get you more, though, it would be no trouble.”

 

Katerina doesn’t reply immediately, half dazed with this waking world and how it differs to the dream she’d just awoken from. Her hand rests automatically at the necklace around her neck and she messes with the small fob watch absentmindedly.

 

“Are you feeling alright?” Melody asks, voice calm as she reaches a hand out to stop Katerina’s fiddling, bringing her daughter’s hands into hers and holding them.

 

“I had the most peculiar dream.” Says Katerina.

 

“Oh, we’ve all had those, dear.” Replies Melody.

 

“It was so real, vivid. I could smell things and… I saw things I’ve never seen before.” Katerina’s brow furrows and she looks up at her mother, “Impossible things. Truly, they were.”

 

Melody moves up from her chair and sits down on the hospital bed. She brushes back the red locks from Katerina’s face and says with the utmost sincerity, “They’re not real. Dreams are by nature very nearly impossible, that’s why they’re dreams.”

 

“Very nearly,” repeats Katerina, looking up at her mother with pleading eyes, not knowing why this need to have her dreams validated as possible mattered to her so much.

 

Melody senses her desperation, if the pained look that crosses her face were anything to go by.

 

“Why don’t you just try to relax,” her mother suggests, “try not to think about it. You’re still recovering and we don’t want to push too much too fast, hmm?”

 

Katerina resigns herself with a nod, sinking deeper into her hospital bed and curling up into herself.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

“Oh, yes,” Missy delights, watching the Doctor’s daughter curl up and away from her mother. She’s obtained a live feed on Minerva’s hospital room all hours of the day and this is by far the highlight.

 

River Song stands there, unsure and at a loss. It’s so unlike the person Missy has heard of, the one who was strong and a force to be reckoned with. A warrior, the perfect soldier – if the files were anything to go by.

 

“You are a disappointment to my kind,” Missy comments of the human-plus Time Lord on the screen and sighs dramatically. “What am I going to do with you? Really? Look at you. _Fretting_!”

 

Missy frowns and starts playing with the ends of her crisp, white doctor’s coat. It really wasn’t as fun as she’d imagined, donning it on.

 

There was a knock at the door and Missy situated herself on the desk like a professional might.

 

“Come in _nnnnn_ ,” she sang brightly. A woman, old in age and weary, was dragged inside by Missy’s handlers. “Hello,” Missy motions to the chair in front of her new desk, “I trust my friends haven’t hurt you too much?”

 

The woman was shoved forward by one of the masked handlers and nearly topples onto the floor.

 

“So weak, human bodies, once turned grey and old.” Missy says, dismissing her co-conspirators with the wave of her hand. They exit and Missy grins, turning all her attention back on her special guest. “Tell me,” Missy points to River Song in the live feed, “don’t you wish you had another chance to destroy her for good?”

 

Madame Kovarian, now gray-haired and utterly helpless, had to squint her one good eye at the image before recognition crossed her weathered and washed up face.

 

“Melody Pond,” she names, her voice laced with a tinge of fear.

 

Missy narrows her eyes at the old woman before glancing back at the recorded image of River Song.

 

“Please,” Kovarian begs, tears running down her cheeks. “Please, no more. I just want to die in peace, don’t take me to her!”

 

The child torturer is on her knees and grabbing at Missy’s wrist, terrified at the mere image of this half-human woman who was supposed to kill the Doctor, but didn’t.

 

“ _Please_!” Kovarian screams, collapsing onto the floor. Missy can practically hear her fragile bones clanking against one another as the woman shakes helplessly from the depth of her fear.

 

A fond smile appears on Missy’s face as she works out the most marvelous scenario.

 

“River Song comes back from the dead, yes, but perhaps with a vengeance.” Missy announces, for her own benefit more than anything. She glances at Kovarian, “One she seems to have taken out on her lovely captor.”

 

And the old woman practically howls in her misery, confirming Missy’s suspicions.

 

Abruptly, Missy turns back toward the live feed, forgetting the wretched old hag who is still begging on her hands and knees, a new plan forming.

 

“Oh, you bad, bad girl. I've misjudged you,” Missy zooms in on River Song’s face, so much happier than before. "Perhaps," Missy breathes out, a twinkle in her eyes, “I may have use for you yet.”


	27. Twenty-Six.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Heavy references to a specific character(s) in [Justify My Thoughts Of Flight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/857268?view_full_work=true) are in this one. And Missy is a bad, bad, **B A D** girl. Don't you ever forget it! Warning for insinuations of torture.

_**Twenty-Six.** _

 

“It’s been two months, Captain.” Said Missy, glaring at her captive. "Two months, and no Doctor.”

 

Cracked teeth or no, Jack Harkness smiled back at her, gritting out the following, “He’s smarter than to just come when someone calls.”

 

Missy’s smile was a sinister one and it brought a chill to his very bones. He hoped she didn’t see right through him.

 

“Oh, I’ve heard different.” She spoke conversationally. “I’ve heard there’s one specific person he’d do that and much more for.” Missy batted her eyelashes at him, “I’m willing to bet, he’d even kill for her.”

 

“You don’t even know who you’re messing with, do you?” Jack replied, disgusted.

 

“Oh, I know exactly who I’m coming up against, _Captain_. I’ve known the Doctor longer than you or that wretched human-plus biohazard he’s so smitten with! I know him better than either of you could ever hope to.” Missy closed her eyes dreamily and pressed her palm to her chest, “I have his hearts.”

 

“I’m not talking about the Doctor.” Jack clarified, wincing when the familiar taste of his own blood appeared on his tongue again. “I’m talking about the Doctor’s _Wife_.”

 

Missy smile slipped right off. Even with the torture (and eventual deaths) that came from such insolence, Jack Harkness took _that_ as a win.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

The Doctor had not intended for this. He’d wished for more than a few seconds head start before the ground literally exploded beneath his feet, but luck was proving to be elsewhere on this night, so seconds are all he gets. It didn’t matter, really. The running felt wonderful and the heat of the fire nearly catching to the ends of his coat proved to be nothing but terribly exhilarating for him.

 

Oh, he’d missed this. So very much. Where had he been that times like these had slipped off and away from his ancient fingertips? He’d forgotten the rush, the danger. The lives he’d lived had accumulated and yet in moments like this he found himself renewed with vigor. He would never tire of this, not ever.

 

Turing around the corner of the ‘Galaxy Bus’ the Doctor found the Tardis there, awaiting where he parked her, a good thirty feet away from him. He snapped his fingers and her doors opened automatically. He dashed right in, not daring to look back at the damage, and sped right up to the console. Pulling a lever and tinkering with this and that, imputing commands into his ship and taking off like he was born to do it. Hell, he was.

 

Materializing a good distance away from the wreckage a few moments later, he was able to open the Old Girl’s doors and see the ship go out much like a star. The sight grew unbelievably bright, especially towards the end, until there was nothing left to show for it but a flicker in the night. Then the space it had occupied was desolate, as if the ship never existed in the first place. Mere scraps remained, pulling apart from each other and floating through space in a wayward fashion.  

 

The fatigue caught up to him then, watching on as whatever scraps were left had glided away. What was once strong and one and together, the ship, had nothing but tiny broken pieces to show of its existence. Those pieces were prone to roam the universe as they would, separate and directionless.

 

He shut the doors eventually and sagged against them, shaking his head of the past and steadfast in his determination to go but forward in his own destinations.

 

“Alright, Old Girl,” called the Doctor to his ship, “another adventure, yeah? Sound good?”

 

The Tardis hummed, more in objection, but he ignored that, setting a new time and an unknown place. He figured so long as it was unexpected and far away from where he’d been summoned, he’d be fine. He’d done that once, a long time ago. More than once, actually. He’d died at each and he’s not willing to do it again. No matter how the Tardis whines over it or she tries to sneak him towards Trenzalore, he won’t go. He _won’t_.

 

Not even Jack and his promise of knowing where Gallifrey was stashed could bring him towards the damnable planet. That fact should have gotten the Tardis to stop trying ages ago, actually.

 

“ _Oh_!” the Doctor cried out, thinking of a compromise. “How about the Bone Meadows?! Haven’t been there in ages! Surely you’ll appreciate that, eh?” he asked his ship. “Met River there once, a long time ago. A sort of… remembrance trip, for you and me. You’d like that wouldn’t you, Old Girl, hmm?”

 

The Doctor waited for a response but for all his Tardis was she did not have a voice to converse with. He had found himself craving interaction of the sort for many a time since running away from Trenzalore and whatever was waiting for him there. He could have gone back for Martha. After everything surely she and Mickey wouldn’t mind another trip here or there. But he wouldn’t. He knew what loomed over Trenzalore and refused to endanger them.

 

He’d learned his lesson with his Ponds. He’d face it alone this time around, whatever came. Time was not the boss of him, however. His rules. Even River went by them for a time, before she’d gone and made up her very own. The woman would do anything to one-up him in the old days. It had driven him quite insane. He shouldn’t have liked that.

 

“It’s no use to dwell on those thoughts,” he said to himself, quietly, wishing someone would reply. That someone would counter his musings. No one did. No one ever did, not anymore.

 

The Doctor started at the sudden ring of the telephone, nearly jumping out of his skin at how loud the sound was.

 

“Take a message,” he ordered his ship, however the telephone kept on ringing. “I am not answering that phone!” he told his Tardis, wanting to stomp his foot down. It seemed a good idea and maybe it would help to put his point across.

 

The phone kept on.

 

“Fine!” he said. If his ship would choose be stubborn about it so could he. “Let it ring. Let it ring for all of eternity, I don’t care. I’m not answering and _you_ can’t make me!”

 

There. Surely his ship could do nothing at that. The Tardis transferred the call and connected through the speakers.

 

“Hey, Paul! I’ll take a pizza, double the pepperoni. And add some sausages onto that, will you?” The voice on the line requested. There seemed to be some argument on the other side, somewhat hushed before the person on the phone spoke again, “Blimey, sorry about that, I’ll take another one. This time light on the pepperoni and no sausages. Do you have bananas by any chance? I keep telling them you don’t do that but they’ll keep pestering if I don’t ask.”

 

The Doctor’s brow furrowed at the voice. He knew that voice. But, it couldn’t be… it just couldn’t.

 

“Paul?”

 

“John?” the Doctor named, unsure.

 

“Err, sorry. Did I get the wrong number? Swear I dialed right.”

 

“John,” the Doctor repeated, his breathing uneven. “John Smith, married to Melody Pond, in a parallel universe to my own.”

 

A long pause. Some shuffling, perhaps a changing of rooms for privacy – or so the Doctor guessed.

 

“Doctor?” John Smith’s voice returned, hushed yet as amazed and unconvinced of the random connection as the Doctor was.

 

“How is this,” the Doctor licked his lips, having to lean against the console for support, “How did you reach the Tardis, John?”

 

“I didn’t,” replied John, perplexed. “I wasn’t trying to.”

 

“Don’t lie to me, John.” Said the Doctor. “All links between our universes are closed, there is no possible way that – ”

 

The line went dead.

 

“John?” the Doctor called out for the other man, “John, are you there? _John_!”

 

The Doctor frantically ran around the console and to the monitor. There, he found but a single image. The image of a daughter he’d thought lost, with blonde hair and blue eyes. All signs pointing to Trenzalore.

 

There remained no more doubts for him. This was a trap and (if the Tardis was willing to make phone calls come through, phone calls that could rip a hole in the universe) he had a responsibility of sorts. He could run no more. Funny how that works. Ironic, even.

 

 _No more running_ , he acquiesced silently, _no more._

“Take me,” he whispered, shutting his eyes and bowing his head in acceptance. In fear. Giving up and giving in.

 

His Tardis took care of the rest.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

Leaning over her patient, ready to make her experiments, there was a knock on Missy’s office door. One of her followers pushed his too-big head right in.

 

“What do you want?” she snapped at him, exasperated.

 

“Sorry to interrupt, mistress. But, erm, uh, I mean, he’s… he’s coming.” The man revealed, and Missy smirked. He disappeared the way he came, leaving her alone with her captive once again.

 

Turning back to her ‘patient’ of the hour, Missy started humming up an old nursery rhyme. She decided she had some lines to add to the rhyme herself and her mockery dripped through the air even with the sincerity she put into it.

 

“Tick, tock, goes the clock, my how you’ve tried to hide her.” Missy frowns overdramatically, and to her utter joy the woman, helpless now as she lay on the hospital bed, widens her green eyes at the much too familiar tune, catching the intended threats Missy is hinting at quicker than most would.

 

“Tick, tock, goes the clock, now don’t you worry dear, I’ll make sure their fates twine and twine, and I’ll cut them both loose when things get too happy for them to stay alive.”

 

Missy watches with sick delight as her captive struggles against her binds.

 

“Tick, tock, goes the clock, and that’s no use, besides, your secrets are hardly my problem, and neither will be the ill mending.”

 

A pause for an intake of breath. Missy makes a show of it before continuing.

 

“Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Tick, tock, goes the clock,” and Missy snickers delightfully, leaning ever so closely to River. “And soon, oh, so soon, your wee baby,” she bites her lip, as if she can’t wait to get this one out, “she’ll need herself a Doctor.”


	28. Twenty-Seven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be the chapter you've all been waiting for...
> 
> Enjoy.

**_Twenty-Seven._ **

 

It was late out when the blue box materialized on Trenzalore, but the live feed scouring all inches of the planet caught it anyway. When the Doctor’s head finally poked out from those well-travelled blue doors, the Mistress smiled.

 

She raised a hand, the one with the Time Lord device secured around her delicate wrist, and held it up near her ruby red lips. She pressed on one of the many buttons located on the device and spoke.

 

“Places, everyone.” Missy directed, “Act one is now in session.”

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

Stepping out of his Tardis, the Doctor noted that the brightness of day had already begun to dust off and slip away from the skies of Trenzalore. The light had receded further and further, until the darkening shade hung over the planet like a silent watcher. The stars that sat there reminded him much of Earth’s. They twinkled down at him, maybe even winked a bit, and he smile in return.

 

Taking in his surroundings, the Doctor patted his blue box on her side before taking a few steps forward, intent to investigate further, only he needn’t bother. The very item needed to stir his interest more sat a few feet away. Waiting.

 

He walked towards the ship that had been covered with a dusty old sheet poorly and pulled the bit of fabric off with one bit swoosh. Particles of dust long gathered flew out at the action, filling his vision with blurry little dots. It didn’t look to have many trips in it left, the ship. The Doctor pulled out his screwdriver and scanned it. The sonic confirmed it to be from the planet Messaline, stolen long ago. His hearts soared at the confirmation, that this could indeed be where she’d been hiding. The daughter he’d long thought dead.

 

He spun around, looking for an exit door to what he’d worked out was a storage room. There were other things around him that also hadn’t been used in ages, so it was his best guess. Perhaps he wouldn’t go through this very likely trap alone, like he’d initially feared. She was out there on this planet somewhere, his Jenny, and he’d find her. He was ready to find her.

 

“Oh, dear,” a woman’s voice caught his attention. She was standing a good ten feet from him, looking shocked at his appearance in this place and wearing what he assumed was a doctor’s coat. “Are you lost, dear?” this woman asked, blinking at him strangely.

 

Come to think of it, shouldn’t he be the one looking at her as such? She had come from out of nowhere. He certainly hadn’t taken notice of her before that moment. Odd.

 

She chuckled, walking right up to him and taking his hand, pulling him along with her like a mother would her wandering child.

 

“It happens all the time,” she tells him animatedly, “such a big building, this hospital. Everyone gets lost in it.”

 

“Hospital?” he blurted, curiosity peaking. He looking around the room again and found the name did not compute with the location. “This is a hospital? Could’ve fooled me.”

 

“Well, you’re in the safe storage, dear.” She explained to him, her heels clicking noisily as they walked. “We shove anything and everything here for our patients, whether they need to be held for a selected time or are on the waiting list to be picked up.”

 

He stopped, yanking her back with his sudden lack of motion. Dread filled him. There’s only one meaning he’s learnt about things being held on such a list at hospitals. It was usually code for awaiting the next of kin to pick up belongings of their loved ones. Jenny’s ship….

 

“My, my! You’ve gone very pale!” the woman fretted, raising her hand and pressing one against his forehead before popping each of her palms onto his cheeks, cupping his face in her hands much too snugly. “You feel warm, too.” She leaned in and he saw how big and manic her eyes were. “We’ll have to see to that. Doctor’s orders.” She gave him a wink, “We wouldn’t want you up and dying here, after all. What kind of hospital would we be then?”

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

River, along with Jack, watched the live feed in horror. They’d been stuffed together, forced to watch Missy leading the Doctor out from the storage area and into the hospital corridors while she prattled on nonsensically. She was meaning to distract him and, much to River’s dismay, it seemed to be working.

 

River had caught onto no clear plot as to what the Doctor’s old friend had up her sleeve, but nothing good could probably be argued for as the right guess.

 

“What are we going to do?” Jack’s voice interrupted her worrying.

 

River looked over at him. The Captain lie motionless but for the fleeting of his eyes from here to there on the gurney next to hers. Jack’s face was a mess, truly. Their captors never did let it fully heal before inflicting some other damage onto it. He’d been sedated from the neck down for so long now that not even she’s sure it will ever be able to properly function again.

 

“River?” he demanded, eyes not once leaving the live feed, yet his voice urged her to give him something. Anything.

 

“I….” But River faltered, blinking back up at the screen.

 

Her husband was there. He was literally in grasp. She wanted nothing more than to go, to run into his arms and confess what she had become and what she’d done, to be sheltered by his loving hold. But would he grant her that solace? After he knew all that was left to know, of the secrets she’d kept from him, and for so long, would he love her still? Could he possibly forgive her?

 

Yet, even that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make priority. Her mind slips to Minerva. Minerva who is under the guise of a different name, though it is her own, it’s not _her_. Minerva, with a locket around her neck that holds all of her unknowns. The ones that, self-consciously, perhaps the girl knew were answerable all along. She is everything that River must fight for first. _I’m sorry, my love,_ she sends out, silently, in her head, wishing the Doctor could hear it.

Mins is just a girl, in truth, utterly unprotected for this entire situation. Not unless that locket is opened. God knows what that maniacal Time Lady had done to her.

 

“I don’t know,” she answered Jack, finally, tears escaping her. “But knowing doesn’t matter. We will getting out of this. I need to find my daughter, no matter what. And I will get you out of this, too, Jack.” She promised, looking away when a wetness started to appear on Jack’s own face. She’d allow him privacy in breaking down, as much as she could anyway. Like this, as they were, there wasn’t much more of an option than to turn her own gaze away.

 

River Song settled down some and watched on, her eyes tracking Missy’s every move. Years of training she’d left behind, left along with the name of one Melody Pond, had started to come back to her. So many tactics and lessons accumulated from her teachings with faceless monsters and wicked child captors had started taking residence, had been accepted with open arms, where they’d once been banished. If Missy was looking for a weapon, she’d get one.

 

Time passed and they watched on, helpless to do anything but, and eventually they came. Two for Jack, and a set of ten for her.

 

River smirked at that. She was not scared, she was ready.

 

**XXX**

 

 

The strange woman led the Doctor into what was labeled as the waiting room for the current floor. It had a desk at the entrance too but there was not a soul behind it. The room had also been cleared of all furniture and, in truth, it looked more of a ballroom than a room you’d find at a hospital. The long red fabric draped from wall to wall helped add to that effect.

 

“Where’s all the people?” he questioned carefully.

 

“This floor is cleared for maintenance.” His host replied, a small chuckle escaping her. “All the hospital, really. I’m making renovations.”

 

“Let me guess,” the Doctor smirked, raising his non-existent eyebrows knowingly, “something about taking over this planet and then the universe as a whole?” the Doctor straightens his bowtie, eyes on her the entire time, “This has been a long time coming, I think.”

 

She biter her bottom lip, pleased. “When exactly did you work it out?”

 

“You and me,” He lets his arms fall open and gestures outward, “never quite felt over.”

 

“Oh, Doctor,” she positively preens over his address, “you’re so young! It’s like you’re begging to be hurtled off a cliff just to add some scratches to this baby face of yours. Can I volunteer?”

 

He ignores that and they’re circling each other now. It could almost be called dancing, if he’d ever make the exception of dancing with anyone other than his long dead wife.

 

“What are you calling yourself these days? I presume the new look calls for a new title, you always were one for statements. Nice dress, by the way.”

 

“Speak for yourself, dear.” She rolls her eyes, and answers, “Missy. It’s short for Mistress.”

 

“Suits you.” The Doctor compliments. “Why are you here?” he demands. “Why on this planet, I mean?”

 

Missy snickers and glances behind him. There’s something in the way her face sets that has him glancing back. The sight of Jack so ill-treated nearly makes his hearts stop.

 

“You really have no clue, do you? So much has happened while you were off on your way.”

 

“She’s lying!” Jack shouts. “She’s trying to get to you, like old times. Don’t listen to her!”

 

Missy gives a look and her co-conspirators appear from out of nowhere. They gag Jack immediately.

 

“The spotlight is on me now, Captain, wait your turn.” She calls to him before turning all of her attention back on the Doctor. “Oh, dear Doctor,” she nears and practically sniffs at the other Time Lord, her face wildly alight with glee. The Doctor finds it rather unnerving.

 

“I took care of the family while you were away, poor things. They missed daddy, of course, but Aunt Missy was there, and she did right by them.” She lays a hand on his chest, right over one of his hearts. “Promise.” She says, sweetly.

 

The Doctor swallows, “Do you have some of my other friends behind lock and key, too? Do you have Jenny?”

 

Missy, who’s hand is pressing far too insistently at his chest, stills. Her eyes go comically wide and she gasps, removing her hand and placing it above her own hearts. “You mean you haven’t heard?”

 

He spies Jack twist and turn in his binds, eyes begging for something but the Doctor is not a mind reader, so he braces himself.

 

“What have you done with Jenny? If you hurt her, I swear I’ll-”

 

“Oh, down boy!” Missy cuts him off, irritated. “If anything, you should be thanking me. I’ve got the culprit right here, ready for your judgment.” Her eyes go cold, as if there’s nothing left but a void where his childhood friend used to be. “It’s what you like to do, don’t you? Scold the monsters?”

 

Missy gets rid of the doctor’s coat she’s wearing first, tossing it aside as if it were the most offending thing in the universe. The Doctor watches her intently as she backs away, heels clicking every step as she walks over to a golden piece of rope that hangs beside a lengthy bit of red cloth just begging to be pulled.

 

“Shall we see what’s behind door number one?” she asks him. “I’m sure you’d want to question the ratty little thief who stole your daughter’s life away, hmm?”

 

Missy gives the rope a tug and the cloth falls opens. There, tied to a chair and looking in no better condition than Jack, is none other than River Song.


	29. Twenty-Eight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the face-to-face/showdown drama ensues. Starring River Song (aka: wegotabadassoverhere.gif) , the Doctor (aka: what.gif) & Missy (aka: nightmaredressedlikeadaydream.gif).
> 
> Also, um... I'm bringing back someone who was just too good for this Whovian world. Reinventing him, so to speak. 
> 
> Enjoy?

**_Twenty-Eight._ **

 

“Well,” huffed Missy, the entire room growing much too still and silent for her liking. “You’re awfully quiet, Doctor. That doesn’t happen often enough.”

 

The Mistress took in the Doctor’s features, eyes raking from the tips of his floppy haired head and down to his gangly legs, right up to the shoes on his feet. She nodded, satisfied with something or other, before spinning around dramatically. Every high heeled step she took forward was a step towards River Song.

 

Missy reached her captive, who was tied to the chair with rope and chains and even two pairs of cuffs linked tightly around each wrist. It’s almost as if Missy and her ‘friends’ were afraid River would escape somehow. The Doctor almost smirks at that, as he knows from experience that they absolutely should be.

 

Missy drew back the curls hiding half of River’s face, as if she were presenting an item for the Doctor’s inspection instead of his long-lost wife. River flinched at the action, turning her face away and out of Missy’s grasp. Such a reaction sent a pang straight through the Doctor’s hearts, as it served only another testament to what he was witnessing. She was there. She was _alive_.

 

“Now, pet,” Missy’s voice pulled him back to the forefront, to the now. She spoke to River with something akin to affection, but the Doctor knew better. “You behave yourself now,” Missy ordered of River and gestured over towards the Doctor, “we have company.”

 

River Song’s jawline set, hard, and her eyes glared up at the other Time Lord even harder. That deterred Missy not.

 

“Good girl.” Missy complimented, running a pointy red fingernail down the curve of River’s nose, which the captive did not appreciate one bit. Still, River did not utter a word back. She kept her lips promptly shut, but those eyes. Bright, green and positively furious. Oh, if a stare could kill….

 

The Doctor wondered what exactly his old friend had done to River to keep her so compliant, so without voice. Because the River Song he knew had never been silent. They had tried, outside forces and inside alike. Many a time, but she’d never submit to it, to them. Never, ever.

 

In fact, because of him she’d grasped at the notion that if trouble lurked and she were backed up against a corner, with no way out and nowhere to spring free, talking up a storm could serve a hell of a distraction.

 

He so dreads the answers to her silence now.

 

_Unless_ … he squinted his eyes at her, focusing on River and only her, pushing Missy and the situation out of the equation for a second. It’s not the wisest of his choices, admittedly. Not by far. Though, he supposes, the ability to keep rational when it comes to River Song has proved downright impossible time and time again. He’d tried and then he’d gone and tried some more. It never worked.

 

She’s River. His River. The wife he took to Darillium and said his silent goodbyes to.

 

The wife who, according to a very precocious Charlotte Abigail Lux, who’d nearly destroyed a parallel universe just to get his attention, asserted was gone for good.

 

_Why aren’t you dead?_

 

The question wants to stumble out but he swallows it down, keeps it to himself and forces himself back to the reality around them. Now is not the time to wander down that road. She’s silent, his River has gone _silent_. And she’s done so by choice. There must be a reason.

 

From what he’d learned from the Tardis, the Library had been sealed off for good. Even Charlotte no longer existed inside the data core. She was with John Smith, in his own world, the world where there lived a Melody Pond.

 

_No_ , the Doctor shakes his head of it, _that’s not important. He mustn’t think of her. Back to John._

 

John Smith, who had the face of the man he used to be, but wasn’t him. John, who had given his life for a cause, but just once. The Doctor saved him, also just once. Then John had passed on the information that was needed to get her out, to get River out. But the Doctor had it wrong. For coincidences do not align, ploys do.

 

There was never a getting River out of anything, he realizes. He was to find her, to be led to her. Like this, _for_ this. Whatever it was, he needed to find out. If Missy was the orchestrator of this entire game or merely a chess piece moving on the board, one thing was for certain: he did not intend to give River Song up this time. Never again.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

The Doctor had been quiet for too long. She doesn’t like it, not one bit. For all the time River’s known him, from one version to another, he’s never been the quiet type. And definitely not this nostalgic idiot that she’s known since forever, from the inside and out. She had hoped her silence would be his cue. That he would pick up the signal and talk. It’s what he did, didn’t he? What was he waiting for?

 

She wants to shout at him, get him going. ‘ _Say something, you fool’!_ Or perhaps, ‘ _Run! Go, now!’_ Because he can be rid of this, safe. If he did that, then he’d be spared of her lies and her deceits. However, she supposed that option would only serve in her favor and it’s not likely anything will go her way from now on.

 

_‘I’m sorry.’_ Now, that weighs heavy on her heart but thick on her tongue. When this is all finished with (if they do manage to make it that far) such words would prove the most insignificant of all her words. A thousand apologies would not right a single one of her wrongs.

 

She’d come back from the dead, for one. Of all the years she’d seen him suffer, and finally she’d known why, and she had done nothing. Not one message or one call. She’d let him go on with his life, haunted by her and because of her. Then, tangled as the timelines were, she’d managed to find _their_ daughter, something that – the more she thinks on it now – had been far more than just simple. It’s almost as if their daughter had been dangled in front of her, placed at exactly the right spot for River to reach, and when River had the girl in hands, she’d pulled a plot into place with it.

 

Finally, and perhaps the worst of it, River had taken it upon herself to decide that it was best to keep the Doctor in the dark, still, after all of it. To build a life without him in it, as if that had ever worked in the past. She’d made the conscious choice to keep him from Minerva, ignoring that it was not her choice to make. Not anymore. Minerva was a woman of age now, and River knew very well the choice her daughter would make. So she’d snatched it from her. Taking the memories Minerva had and locking them away inside of a necklace, where they could be felt but not reached or realized, all the while telling herself that she’d done it to protect her daughter. To protect Mins from the losses she’d suffered. To ease the girl’s pain, when really and truly, River acted only out of fear.

 

When exactly had she become this? This creature taking to hiding in the edges of the universe the Doctor was sure to avoid. It was cowardly.

 

And their daughter. Their little girl who was not a little girl anymore, no matter how River forced it to be true. Minerva wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for him. And poor Jack. She’d sucked him into it as well.

 

Everything that has happened, all of this, River is convinced, that there is no one at fault but herself. It’s not pity, that conclusion. She’d long learned that all this means is that she has to fix it, she has to right it. No one else.

 

This she can do.

 

_You and me, time and space._

 

The words come without bidding, words she once uttered, like a ghost of her very own. Her very own self. The person she had been, who she is no longer sure she has it in her to be. The words cloud her and take her back, back to the underlying facts. One specifically that she should have known by now.

 

There is no running without him. Her Doctor.

 

It had been a lifetime ago. Several. She hasn’t the right to ask for their forgiveness, not one of them. At least she can say she knows that now. It’s one less thing to linger on. One less worry, as she works herself from her confines bit by bit, freeing her to be able to do as she must when the time comes.

 

When it’s done, free of ropes and chains and all, when the lights go out and it is her time to strike, the removing of her binds proved the falsest of challenges. River may have forgotten since she’d gotten back, adjusting to the new her and everything she had become in returning to the side of the living, but she remembers now.

 

It’s a pity, really, and probably the biggest mistake Missy could have ever made. The notion that any such thing could hold her for long.

 

She had once been _the_ River Song. In hindsight, The Mistress should have checked her records again.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

Missy spoke up when the Doctor refused to do so. Too lost in his own thoughts to be of some actual entertainment. Did she really have to do all the work?

 

“I should have known you like them naughty.” She commented, offhandedly, more than slightly delighted at the prospect of _finally_ finding something that made the man go ever so speechless. She’d have to write it down for later. Make a book of it and sell copies.

 

Missy raised her eyebrows, doing her absolute best to look distraught for the next bit. Her eyes widening just a tinny little more, too – all for dramatic effect, naturally.

 

“Do you know how many people she’s killed, Doctor?”

 

And she did wonder if he knew. She wondered if he liked it. She could work with that.

 

The Doctor had become astoundingly mute. However, he did regard her. It pleased her immensely, until those eyes of his fleeted back over towards River Song every few seconds. He couldn’t seem to help it. That became tiresome rather quickly and Missy was not about to have anyone upstage her. Not here, with the Doctor finally in her grasp again. And especially not by that pathetic, human-plus hybrid excuse of a Tardis After Hours concoction.

 

“She killed your daughter.” Insisted Missy. Bitter her lip while she gauged at his reaction. The non-existent eyebrows of his face knitted together and, satisfied, she carried on. “The one you’ve been searching for? Yes.” She confirmed, “Dead, I’m afraid. All her fault, too.”

 

Missy glanced at River. She wanted to see the other woman’s face while all the secrets she’d tried to keep to herself were revealed, all in one go.

 

“ _My_ dear Doctor,” Missy made a long exhale, loving how claiming of the Doctor as her own really seemed to drive the Song trollop crazed. “I’ve a present for you,” she announced, conveying what she was about to do to River with an exaggerated blink.

 

As expected, River’s glare softened and turned pleading. Missy couldn’t help chuckle at the poor mutt.

 

That chuckle died in her throat the second the lights cut off.

 

 

**XXX**

                                                                                               

 

“What’s happening?!” River heard Missy demand, as she slipped out of the chair and spirited away.

 

The dark was uninviting, echoes of _hey, who turned out the lights?_ come forward in her memory, but she shakes it off, adjusting to the lighting faster than she’d expected herself to.

 

A hand slips hold around her wrist out of nowhere and she nearly breaks it off, if not for the rough tug forward and out. She realizes that she recognizes the grip. Relief washes over her.

 

River follows somewhat dumbly in the dark, knowing the Doctor would catch up sooner than later but hoping she'd have the time to do all she had to first. 

 

She doesn’t know how long she’s led away but she knows when a gun is offered up to her, and she takes it gladly. Feeling now is the right time as any, even though there is nothing but darkness to accompany them, she speaks up.

 

“You’re late.”

 

The man who 'd dragged her away is masked. She sees the makings of it in the dark and he pulls it up and off, sighing. Tired and annoyed with River Song in a way that was so entirely familiar, she nearly laughs.

 

Sergeant Rupert Pink tosses the mask aside as if it is offensive to him personally.

 

“Doctor Song,” he began.

 

“ _Professor_.” River corrected him. If an air of smugness came with the title she could hardly help indulging in it.

 

Sergeant Pink cursed beneath his breath, gritting his teeth and exhaling, noisily, through his nostrils.

 

“Professor,” he addressed properly, through gritted teeth.

 

He was glowering at River, certainly. She can feel it. Her lips curled upward in response. For it was a glower she knew, one that said _‘this is all more trouble than I signed up for.’_

 

Just as quick as he was to infuriate, Sergeant Pink relented in his agitations. Calm and careful and calculating, he was again – a soldier, through and through.

 

His eyes turning front, River fell in sync with him almost immediately. They both continued on in the dark, navigating their way through it. 

 

“I shouldn’t have come at all.” He mentions, as one would mention in another place, another time, conversationally.

 

“And yet here you are.” Replied River, smirk never once faulting.

 

“I owe you a debt.” Reminded Sergeant Pink, sounding more than rueful over the existence of such a thing. “I’ve not forgotten.”

 

“Lovely to hear. Now, please, do shut up, dear. I’ve a daughter to find.”

 

River then rushed off without any clearance with him, ignoring his protests, until he had no choice but to follow along after her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES. [Sergeant Rupert Pink](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Danny_Pink). Otherwise known as Dan The Solider Man. Otherwise known as Danny Pink. Otherwise known as 'A Good Man'. I miss him. :(


	30. Twenty-Nine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **AN:** A bit of violence happens in this one. And a bit of death. **points to Missy  & whispers** It's all her fault.  
> References to Oswin & the Library happen too.

**_Twenty-Nine._ **

 

“What’s happening?” Missy screeched again at the top of her lungs when the room was plunged into darkness. Whoever’s incompetence was to blame for this, she’d make sure would get their punishment. Then again, if you wanted something done right you’d most likely have to do it yourself.

 

That, she could do. Missy focused on the bracelet-like gadget secured around her wrist and pressed the side buttons, making it light up in the dark. Easily, she could make out the specific guests that had taken flight during this little power outage.

 

“And what have we here,” Missy muttered. One of them, by the looks of the direction they had started towards, would work out in her favor. She could track _that_ one down later, but the other….

 

“You know it is very rude to walk out on your host,” Missy said aloud, leaning down to pull out the special gun secured to the garter beneath her frilly dress. She readied to take aim, following the body heat the weapon reacted to, and fired.

 

She could hear the grunt of surprise the Doctor let out in the darkness when the shot pierced his body and she briskly wandered over to where he collapsed.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

The Doctor couldn’t believe it. She shot him. His oldest friend and enemy. Of all the ways she could have gone about killing him, and she had actually gone and _shot_ him. He honestly hadn’t expected this.

 

“Leggy scoundrel,” Missy muttered as she knelt down at his side, her features softening when she got a good look at his face. “Don’t you know that she and I have unfinished business, Doctor? And you, dearest,” she chuckled. Full of glee. “You should know better by now.”

 

“You shot me.”

 

“Stating the obvious, are you?” Missy flattened her palms over his chest, resting at his hearts. “You are her weakness, as she is yours. It would be poetic," Missy grimaced, "if it weren’t so pathetic.”

 

“You leave,” he gasped, squirming with the agony shooting up at his every nerve ending. Slow, it worked, crippling him bit by bit. Making him less than useless and fairly quickly. “You leave her al-lone!”

 

“You may feel differently when this is all over,” advised Missy, her voice strangely solemn. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Doctor.” She leaned over to the shell of his ear and started to whisper. “If you can’t find it in yourself to kill her with your bare hands, once you know, I’ll volunteer. For old time’s sake,” he felt a warm hand fitting over one of his own and squeezing gently. Oddly, the Doctor recognized it as an act of comfort, of sympathy. “Hmm?”

 

With a nod and a smirk, the one who now called herself Missy arose. She once again took aim with her weapon, only this time aiming between his eyes.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

When the second shot fired, everything inside of River was shouting for her to turn back. For her to go and see for herself that he was alright. That it hadn’t been him at the other end of a bullet.

 

 _But she wouldn’t,_ a voice in River’s brain rationalized, _Missy wouldn’t dare._

 

However River couldn’t be a hundred percent sure. There were plenty of version of the Master that hated her husband, envied him and what he had. It’s terribly hard to forget the Saxon version. The lengths the Master went to in order to obtain power had been maddeningly improbable, and yet they'd happened. _But they had been friends once._ That had to count for something. River hoped it did. That the Master, now Missy, couldn’t have killed the Doctor in cold blood. Just as the Doctor could never find it in himself to kill the Master, no matter their circumstances. Not truly, anyway.

 

 _Or not_ _yet_ , another voice echoed.

 

“Professor Song,” she could hear Sergeant Pink calling her attention. His voice urgent and pressing her onwards in their task.

 

River snapped out of her worries. She had to, _they_ had to, continue. They had to find her daughter, first and foremost, and open up the necklace hanging around Minerva's neck. To let the girl remember. There was no other option at this point. Mins had been well trained for combat, if sources River obtained were to be trusted. She would not remain defenseless for a second longer. River would make sure of that.

 

“Room E45.” River recalled to Sergeant Pink. “It’s the one the guards were always making a fuss about. Spoken in hushed tones and that sort.”

 

“You sure it’s not a trap?” Pink questioned reasonably.

 

River swallowed, trying not to fret over the complete possibility of it being exactly that. “It’s all I’ve got right now.”

 

Either Pink heard the desperation in her voice or he simply trusted her judgement, he offered himself to go first. River refused him and led the way to the E corridors of the hospital. It was eerily silent on their journey but River couldn’t shake away the feeling that they were being watched.

 

Upon reaching their destination, Sergeant Pink wired the lights on the floor back on. The rooms on E floor had all been vacated of their patients and River shudders to think where exactly Missy had sent them. Her thoughts come to ponder on the others living on the planet of Trenzalore. Surely the hospital being taken over and emptied would have raised a few eyebrows by now. Guilt about dragging Jack Harkness into all of this returned to her with a vengeance and River found it hard to get around it.

 

“Are any others with you?” River inquired of Pink rather suddenly, as both trailed along, room after empty room, their guns at the ready.

 

Sergeant Pink snorted, “It’s hard to convince outsiders that Professor River Song is alive and well, let alone with all the rest of it. Time travelling is one thing, but dead and then alive again? That’s a whole different ballpark.”

 

River can concede to that. “Thank you,” she said softly. “For coming when I called. I know I’ve no rights to, technically. Being dead as I had been and all.”

 

“And like _I_ said,” Pink responded, “I owe you a debt. Dead or not.”

 

She felt a swell of affection for Sergeant Pink then. Prickly perfectionist as he can be when giving orders or on a job, he comes through for a girl when she most needs it. E45 comes into sight. It is the only room with the door shut and bolted. There is also a security passcode slot beside the door.

 

“Cover me,” River instructs Pink, lowering her own weapon.

 

“I don’t thin-”

 

“Just do it!” River snaps, focusing all her attention on the passcode. What would Missy possibly use in naming of a key? A riddle or a fact, a joke? The woman was mad, that was obvious, but what exactly would a mad woman use for a passcode?

 

 _Doctor,_ River typed in.

 

**_A C C E S S   D E N I E D_ **

 

Fine, that had been too easy. River shut her eyes and thought of the past few months. Of the various things Missy had flaunted in front of her, other than the Doctor. There had been her secrets, the ones she’d kept. Missy seemed very interested in the matters of her private life, Minerva being at the front of those interests. There had also been the incident with Kovarian….

 

All things were ultimately centered on her, on River herself. She was a source of Missy’s obsessions, it’s true, but better yet, could she be the key?

 

 _River,_ she pressed enter.

 

Her second try was denied as well. The screen blinked back at her, telling her she had only one try left. She had to think. Conversation after bloody conversation Missy had carried on with her, and at length, but they had all seemed pointless up until now.

 

“Professor Song,” Sergeant Pink voiced in warning but River paid even less attention to him than before. She had gripped onto something, or maybe it gripped onto her. A voice, a lifeline.

 

_“Doctor who?”_

 

The voice, an unknown, asked of her. River could hear it, the voice. A girl, perhaps. Something familiar about her as well. She felt she knew this girl, and the girl knew her. Watched over her, even. _Keeper_ and _Forest_ intermingled with faded memories, yet still they were too fuzzy to hold onto let alone decipher.

 

This girl. She had been the beginning of everything, River reckons. In some timey-wimey way of it, this had all happened long after the end of it. Like a dream, or more a nightmare. The girl asked the question and River had gone and answered it. _Yes, I answered her_. Memory faded or not, River is sure of that much. Like a match that set everything aflame the second the answer left her lips, the name, once spoken, had made her a part of something. Something bigger and not truly herself, they had been joined. Then when that ‘something bigger’ was done with her, it had gone and made her whole but at a cost. River had been alive again ever since.

 

_"Doctor who?"_

 

The voice said, calmly and gently. As if the girl were speaking right into River's ear.

 

River had been the Doctor’s wife once, so he’d shared with her this particular bit of information. Missy had been his friend long before that though. Both of their relationships with the Doctor were in a personal light, albeit in different ways. River has no doubt that Missy is knowing to as much of the Doctor herself.

 

_“Doctor who?”_

 

The question echoes, louder now. River can almost see a face. Dark hair, dark eyes. Young. Walking along her memories and pulling, mending, creating. Helping.

 

River had known the answer to the question then, just as she knows the answer now.

 

“Look the other way,” she instructed Sergeant Pink. He may have glared but still he did as she asked.

 

With a deep breath, River typed in the Doctor’s name.

 

**_A C C E S S   G R A N T E D_ **

 

River jumped a step back and readied her weapon when the doors automatically swung themselves open. She glanced at Sergeant Pink and at his nod she went inside, Pink staying behind to guard the doorway.

 

Inside the room, the hospital lights above seemed brighter than they usually were. The hospital bed located in the middle of the room was empty. The sheets thrown onto the floor in a haste. Minerva was not in here. River acknowledged, with a corroded sinking feeling, that this was indeed a trap.

 

“Sergeant,” River called over her shoulder, glancing, only to find the soldier lying motionless on the floor, blood pooling from the large slash at his neck. Missy was leaning against the doorway, the large knife she held in her left hand stained with crimson.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

“Rupert!” the Song trollop gasped, hurrying over to her most-likely-dead-by-now friend.

 

Missy wandered into the hospital room past them, picking up the sheet thrown onto the floor and setting them back on the hospital bed. She placed the sharp knife coated with the dead man’s blood under the hospital pillow and gave it a nice pat.

 

“So, then. You like,” she spread her arms out towards the room, showing it off.

 

River Song, tears streaming down her cheeks now, looked up at the Mistress, eyes heated with hatred. “You’ve killed him.”

 

“No, dear,” Missy chuckled. Tickled by the conversation. “You’ve killed him. You called him here, did you not?”

 

River did not answer. She stood, her weapon pointed at a new target, finger at the trigger.

 

Missy, disinterested with the sight entirely, got up, turned her back to River, and started fluffing the pillow. Just as she’d expected, River was there in a dash, taking the knife from beneath the pillow and holding it to Missy’s pale, white throat.

 

Missy snickered devilishly, “Now what are you going to do with that?”

 

“Where is she?” River demanded, pressing the knife even closer to the flesh at Missy’s neck.

 

“Why would I tell you?” goaded the Mistress. All smug and smiles.

 

“If you don’t tell me where my daughter is, I swear to everything in the cosmos I’ll-”

 

“Kill me?” Missy taunted River with another chuckle. “Oh, Professor. We both know you can do much better than that. But, since we’re on the topic, kill me and you’ll never see either of them again. Well, perhaps in pieces. I’ll have them mailed to your prison cell every Christmas, sista’. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

 

The tremor ringing through River’s hold of the knife told Missy all she needed to know. She pushed away the weapon River was weakly holding to her throat and turned around to look at the human-plus abomination.  

 

“Are you ready to confess, Melody Pond?”

 

“Depends,” River threw down the gun Sergeant Pink had provided her with on the empty hospital bed, her eyes the polar opposite of defenseless. “Are you so sure I’ll let you live after your sickening little games have played out?”

 

“Oh, I’m quite sure you’ll have someone else’s vengeance to deal with once this is all out in the open.” Missy reached a finger out to pinch at one of River’s many wayward curls. She smiled at the insecurity in River’s green orbs, the fear there. “This isn’t a game either.” She told the other woman truthfully. “This is simply justice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~I killed Danny, don't look at me. I'm so ashamed.~~


	31. Thirty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~HAPPY NEW YEAR~~
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> This chapter is shamelessly a Missy & River chapter, mostly because they need to interact on the show and they haven't so I rectified that for myself and for you.
> 
> Anyway, this part picks up after a fair amount of time has passed in the last chapter. Not a large portion of time but there is indeed a gap in-between chapters that will be addressed within the following parts. I figured I'd just give you a notice on that before you go in.
> 
> Enjoy??

**_Thirty_ **

 

River does not recognize the room she awakens in. It is bright and strikingly plain although it is properly furnished. There is nothing out of the ordinary but the air feels dense and all sorts of wrong.

 

She finds herself in a rather disheartening state of dress, her curves wrapped away in a set of unflattering red robes. Golden bands swirl around her arms like decorative vines, snug at her wrists and winding up her elbows. Anyone would take them for ornamental jewelry only they remind River a little too much of restraints. She flexes her arms experimentally. Testing. Finding she can move relatively easily even in her rather decorative binds.

 

River then registers the lack of golden strands falling into her face as they normally do and reaches a hand up to find someone has tucked her wayward curls up and away. Her hair has always been a rather untamable beast however. Already she finds her hand brushing against the curls that have managed to escape holding.  

 

A simple dread settles in her stomach, niggling at her senses. Hovering just out of her line of sight. And the air. It smells different but not entirely unfamiliar. _This is not Earth_ , she knows with a startling clarity, _nor is it Trenzalore_. So where is she? And where is her daughter?

 

“You ought to calm those hearts of yours, pet,” a rather disinterested voice suggests.

 

River follows the voice and spots the Mistress lounging about at the other side of the room in one of the most ridiculous set of sofas River has ever seen. Her trademark purple Victorian gown had been swapped for robes of deep red too, almost identical to River’s own.

 

“You’re hardly my first choice of companion but well, to sing to the tune of the Doctor, we can’t have everything can we?” Missy states offhandedly, stretching herself out on the furniture much like a lazy cat would. “So,” Missy grins, lifting her eyebrows, “how do you feel?”

 

Taking notice that she herself has been sprawled on a sofa much like Missy’s, River sits up immediately. Offended. “Where are we?” she demands.

 

“Oh, that’s not even the right question,” Missy dismisses it with a wave. “Go on,” she insists enthusiastically. “Ask me something else. Something cleverer, I know you can do it. On you go.”

 

“Fine,” River grits her teeth, holding back from insulting the cantankerous creature she’s stuck in an unknown room with. “ _How_?”

 

Missy claps excitedly and rushes on over across the room, planting herself right at River’s side.

 

“Good! See that, _that_ was a good one. Alright, I’ll tell you dear, but it will be our very own gal pal secret.” Missy shuffles even closer to her, much to River’s horror. Practically falling into her lap. “But you must promise not to speak of it, else I’ll have no choice but to cut off your squishy little tattler tongue. Promise?”

 

Missy bites her bottom lip sweetly, watching River with the gleaming eyes of a predator.

 

“Speaking as one psychopath to another,” River replies evenly, “it would be awfully rude to make promises neither of us intend to keep.”

 

If even possible, Missy’s peppy exterior appears to swell at the response and River finds herself gazing into eyes far too sly and much too cruel to be on such a lovely looking face.

 

“Anything feel different?” Missy questions coyly, spreading herself out on River’s sofa much as she had on the other one. “Perhaps even… four times as different? Eh?”

 

River slips off from the sofa without answering and approaches the darkened windows of their room. With a sigh, River decides to forego on answering Missy's latest riddle. The Mistress appeared to be all about riddles this go ‘round.

 

River affords the woman tiny glances from time to time, deciding to pace the space they’ve been contained in and hoping to find a way out, or at best an indication of where they actually were.

 

“Do you really not feel them?” Missy blurts out eventually.

 

River narrowed her eyes, studying the Time Lady. She sat so casual and so without a worry. The woman who had taken her daughter away from her and stashed her lord only knows where. Was Mins safe? Was she even alive?

 

All the scheming and plotting and gallivanting about, moving Mins up and down the universe, hiding her from her father, all things River had done were in order to protect her daughter and now, done again in order to reunite them both. She had lost Mins to a ploy so effortless and so astoundingly _blatant_ that River can't help chastise herself to death for not having seen it coming. Honestly! She was River Song. That alone would provide a list of enemies for her daughter. Not to mention Mins also happened to be the daughter of the Doctor, who either held the title of the most beloved or hated man in all the cosmos. What else could have been expected? A happy ending? A _safe_ ending? Had she really turned into such a nostalgic _idiot_   locked away for years in a computer hard-drive?

 

“I’m so sorry," River uttered spitefully, "but I quite seem to have other things, other rather more _important_ things weighing on my mind. Things a creature like you would have no notion of, caring for no one but yourself. So please, _please_ ,” River had to pause for a deep breath. To gather her nerve, else she would crumble into a puddle of her own tears or perhaps lose all her self-control, taking to strangling Missy into her next regeneration cycle. “Do excuse my little human-plus brain for not working _fast_ enough or dividing the proper attention, catering to your every fantastically mad whim. One of your infinitely pompous and wholly arrogant kind cannot be used to such insolent behavior, my dear Mistress. I am so _very_ sorry that you are still not the most important being on this entire planet!”

 

Finished with her rant, River felt the coil of anger and fear and frustration leave her like a cool wave. Settling her, for now.

 

Missy arose from the sofa gracefully, the curl of her smile positively knife-like. “You know, I prefer you angry,” she offers as one might offer a deep and dark confession,  wandering closer to River and beginning to sway in place ever so slightly. “It suits you,” Missy hopped on one foot which made her look completely ridiculous, “the whole flush of rage thing. I’d even bet that’s why he’s smitten with you so. You radiate everything he’s never allowed himself to be. It’s rather pitiful.” She twirls in place once, twice. “He's like a big puppy, so easy to read. But you'd never kick the puppy, would you?"

 

River doesn't bother to reply, glancing at the unnaturally high ceilings rather than to stare at Missy for longer than necessary. 

 

The Mistress skipped back into River’s line of vision soon enough. Not one to be left out of focus for long.

 

“One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.” Missy chants, cackling delightedly. Mercurial, the sound of it, as it echoes around them. “Believe it or not, that’s not as annoying as it used to be,” she confides to River. “Oh, come along Song!”

 

Missy’s tiny hand is quick, like a serpent, snatching hold of River’s own and tugging her close. Caught off guard, River goes. They very nearly smack faces only Missy is too quick. She arranges River quickly to her liking, taking the proper stance and taking the lead, evidently fond of twirling River in endless circles. The Mistress eventually slows down, leading them both in a lazy waltz and humming a tune as they dance. River swears if has to put up with anymore of this nonsense she’ll pick up that sodding sofa and bludgeon Missy to death with it, consequences be damned!

 

“You really are human-plus, aren’t you?” Missy scrunches up her nose as if she’s caught whiff of something exceptionally distasteful. “You can’t even feel them go all thumpity-thumping in your chest, it's like you're permanently defected!” Missy accused testily, letting go her hold of River and taking a step back. “Ba-boom ba- _boom_ , ba-boom ba- _boom_! It’s the ultimate mantra!” she shouted, glaring in disbelief. Clearly not getting the result she wished, the Mistress murmured a curse to Thete in Gallifreyan before making a fist at the front of River’s robe and pulling forward.

 

It happened so fast that River went tumbling, clasping her own hands upon Missy's fists and trying to release their hold. “What the _hell_ do you think yo –”

 

“Shut it, mutt!” snapped Missy, pressing her forehead up against River’s and making her eyes fall shut instantaneously. 

 

The joint space of intimacy instantly conjures a sound. A thundering River has only heard in the head of one other Time Lord, one that silences River completely because this is a _link_. She is carrying on a mental like with the Master of all people. Only... well, then she becomes distracted. Because the sound in her head becomes louder with the likeness to the sound of drums. No, not drums: _heartbeats_. And all of them belonging to her. 

 

River gasps, wrenching herself away from the Mistress and backing away frightfully. She clutches a shaky palm atop her own chest to feel it, feel them. Two hearts. How can she have two hearts? An echo is there. It's a ghost tapping against her skull, faint and fading. A forgotten fingerprint. A tear in Time and in her. It's all happening, the beginning and the end, and she was there. _She was there._

 

“What have you done to me?!” she demands angrily, pieces of her memory fleeing into place while others remain blank. She has not forgotten what it was like to be an experiment and she has no intent on becoming another one, not for anyone. So furious she is at the realization of the two hearts beating in her chest and timelines being restored to her consciousness that River doesn’t fully register the presence of others that have entered the room.

 

“Is she ready?” a man inquired.

 

River starts at the unanticipated appearance of many. She swallows down her surprise and the robes she is wearing start to make sense. Now, with pieces of her memory that she'd not had before coming together, she works out that the fellows dropping in on them were not people at all. They're Time Lords, the lot of them. Their garbs suggested only the highest of command surrounded her and so she turns to address them, as she’s not particularly in the mood to be cornered and dragged somewhere else without one hell of a fight.

 

“Well?” the man demanded of Missy, voice aged and frail but neither lacking in an ounce of authority.

 

Missy eyed him lethally, mouth turned in a frown. The look he gave her deigned that he felt he was looking at something particularly revolting, most certainly something foul that he’d rather be stepping on with his shoe. Missy smirked, enduring the stare with a shared loathing and satisfaction. She starting to pick at her teeth with a long red fingernail, as if something was caught in them.

 

“ _Oh_. Oh, now wait. Hang on a minute,” Missy wrinkled her nose and her finger pointed to her mouth. “Hate it when this happens.”

 

The select Time Lords in the room took the display of insolence in silence, however the man demanding an answer of the Mistress gave a long-suffering sigh. It was one of little patience, meant to inform Missy that she was pushing her luck. River is positive Missy couldn't give a rats arse. 

 

“Leave us,” the man whom was to endure Missy’s taunting ordered.

 

The Time Lords followed his instruction without question, huddling together and disappearing at the spot. It was only when River’s eyes moved lower that she saw a diamond-like symbol on the floor lightly fading away. Possibly a transport system. 

 

A shrewd eye turned towards River and the man Missy was desperate to antagonize moved in her direction.

 

“My name is Rassilon,” He introduced himself. 

 

With a name to the face River found the animosity suddenly made all the sense in the galaxy.

 

Missy clicked her teeth together obnoxiously. “Good as new,” she announced. “Now, what was is you wanted?” she asked the Lord President of Gallifrey, hands resting on her hips.

 

Rassilon eyed the Mistress disapprovingly before sparing a glance River’s way and uttering, “Welcome to Gallifrey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time Lords are dicks.


	32. Thirty-One

 

**_Thirty-One_ **

 

There are hands cupping either side of his face, knowing, tender touches pressed against his forehead. They brush his hair aside. Whomever they are, they not only know his name but they speak it freely, however hushed. Their Gallifreyan is thick with history and love, singing a lullaby he’s long forgotten.

 

The Doctor’s eyes roll behind his eyelids, recognition jolting his memories by touch and words, bidding him to arrive at some form of consciousness. His mind is an array of thoughts, of instances, moving fast forward in his head. There is not a stop button in sight.

 

Blurry as his first glimpse is, he sees the face of a woman peering down at him. His head may or may not be on her lap while she sings him a gentle song. When she notices he’s awake her own eyes crinkle with a fondness and his smile grows wider, answering and knowing.

 

The woman holding him has the same face as he’d last seen her, but he’d know her anywhere. Just as she’d know him, even now. He doesn’t quite know what to say to her and so he lets the silence work out the rest, his own hand reaching to join her own, pushing his too-long and floppy hair out of his face and bringing her palm to his hearts.

 

“I’m home?” he asks her, tears in his eyes. There’s only one place he’d find his mother alive again, after all.

 

She smiles wanly before nodding at his inquiry. “I was beginning to wonder when you’d show up,” she admits. His mother looks away for a moment, fear clouding her eyes when she looks back at him. “It’s a trap. All of it. It’s all a trap.”

 

“I’d reckon,” the Doctor agrees flippantly, trying to sit up only to experience a blinding pain in his head for the effort.

 

“Shhh,” his mother soothes, pushing him to stay still. “Don’t try to move so quickly, my son.” She advises, “You’re still recovering.”

 

“Recovering,” he repeats. “What do you…” Her eyes stare down at him, resolute and unapologetic. The Doctor’s eyes go wide at the sensation setting in on his limbs. Oh, he’s felt this surge of energy before.

 

Once upon a time in a little place called Berlin, on the eve of war – if memory serves him.

 

“Oh, no. You didn’t,” he pleads. “What have you _done_? What are you,” but the Doctor’s voice falters, too weak to make a fuss.

 

“What any mother does willingly for her child,” his mother’s visage falters just as the Doctor’s eyes fall shut, revealing The Moment, switching to the visage of Rose Tyler once more. “I bring life,” it says, placing both hands on his chest, right where his two hearts should beat. The Moment’s eyes shine gold, a bout of golden swirls released between the two of them, blinding.

 

Upon waking, the Doctor finds himself fully healed.

 

The Moment is nowhere in sight.

 

**XXX**

****

****

The metal binds secured around her wrists are like none Minerva has ever encountered before. Captain Jack and her sister had made sure she was capable of springing out of any pair of handcuff or binds located throughout the stretch of the galaxy and yet _this_ current set holding her from freedom were proving to best her eclectic experience. She simply could not find a way of escape.

 

And so here she was, in the bollocking dark, handcuffs wrapped tight around her wrists, pinching at her flesh with even the tiniest of struggles as she suffered in silence. She didn’t need the light to know her skin was already turning a nasty shade of purpleish-blue, thought that hardly mattered. She’d manage a way to free herself, she just would. If her captors honestly expected handcuffs to be enough to hold her they had another thing coming. She was not born the daughter of the Doctor and River Song for nothing.

 

That’s another annoying thing. Her memory. It’s come back to place in bits and pieces, Missy promised it would. Auntie blabbered on something or other about time being up and needing to get the show on the road. _Just pop that locket open and all your questions will be answered. On you go, good girl._ It had come like a flood, the memories. Who she was, whom she was looking for, those she lost. Mins supposes being handcuffed while all of that got sorted out really was for the best.

 

She also wondered where Missy was now. She’d not seen the other woman since this whole fiasco kicked off.

 

“Have you tried perhaps asking them to let you go nicely?”

 

Minerva stilled at the voice, instantly wary. She’d not sensed another presence occupy the holding area and the Time Lords who’d questioned her earlier had yet to return, she’d have noticed. They wore dresses basically.  

 

“Some captors respond better to flattery,” the unknown visitor suggested. “Boosting of egos and all that. You may have had a different outcome if you chose that route. The end of your foot meeting their face, however,” a chuckle.   

 

The most peculiar buzzing sound filled the room and light flickered on overhead. It did not help to reveal his face however it did serve to lend an outline of his figure. He was not dressed in the plain Gallifreyan garbs of her interrogators and he wasn’t bulky but rather tall and spindly. Like an insect. He had a pair of dark blue slacks, nearing black, with a matching overcoat. She could peak a dash of red lining on the inside of his coat and on his feet appeared to be a pair of earth-made Doc Martens.

 

“Aye,” he uttered, soft spoken and reflective. He took a few steps closer, ever careful to keep his face hidden in the shadows. “Handcuffs. Tell you a secret, many times I’ve considered ridding the universe of them but knowing a certain someone, she’s very fond of them and so I’d be assassinated for it. And besides, I quite like the fitting on this one,” he stated, almost a confession, smoothing a hand over his coat. “But we’re getting rather distracted, back to escaping. I do that, I go on and on and _on_ until this lot grow so tired of my incessant yapping that they either decide to shoot first or walk away, and of course, by that time I’ve already a plan up my sleeve.”

 

The more he talks the more Mins gets a feeling he’s waiting for her to say something, to make something familiar about him though she can’t say she’s ever met this man before in her lives. This, she knows. And yet…

 

His voice is a soft, kindly thing and Mins is downright positive that makes it easy to fool everyone into believing he’s a proper grumbler when in a mood, but he's not. He's the kindest thing, if a few faults. But there’s a _thing_. Another thing and she _knows_. She can _feel_ it, and it’s very frustrating not catching up to whatever it is. She’s mute by a sudden desperation, filling up with words and quiet and belonging. Oddities like _nonsensical_ and _flying_ and _kidneys_ and a connection, not hers, not entirely, but an anchor amidst an ending and a beginning. Oh, and how she’s avoided the thought. After Jenny it all seems too suffocating, too raw and constant; another ending.

 

She wonders if her parents ever get these inklings. These giant gaping pieces thrown right at their lap, and the pull is so strong and Mins has to ask, has to know. She doesn’t even realize she’s crying. “Do I know you?”

 

“No,” he answers, almost a whisper. Sad and regretful. “No, child. The world turns and turns and we just happen to walk on the same plain,  incidentally, running on the same path. Sometimes all we can do is stand still in the same room and… help. Wait for things to come together. Tedious work at best. Now, personally I prefer skipping up to the good chapters. Makes it more interesting. Though,” he hesitates, unsure. It’s still too dark to see his face but Mins can sense he’s cracked a smile. “Maybe… maybe when you’re older, yeah?”

 

He trails off, gathering himself up before giving a mighty sigh. Then he’s off the way he came. His steps an echo against the moment, fading fast. The man does not stop, he does not look back. Instead he waves something over his shoulder that lights up at the end, shaded blue in the darkness and the same odd buzzing sound she’s heard somewhere before.

 

The handcuffs holding tight around her wrist come off with a click.

 

Mins wastes no time trying to find sight of him after escaping her holding room. She’s wandering around another bastardly long corridor when a hand comes out of a doorway and grips her, dragging her into the room. She's up to fight her way out but a familiar face greets her, smile a mile wide.

 

“Took you long enough, poppet,” Missy winks. “Time to spring mummy out.”

 

 

**XXX**

****

 

Rassilon paces regally in front of her, waving a hand before stating, “I’m sure the Doctor has informed you of me at some point or another.”

 

River’s not entirely sure if Rassilon is feigning disinterest which, if she’s honest, she is not positive shouldn’t unnerve her. Rassilon seemed ancient to look upon, his skin appearing papery thin and fragile. The lines on his face etched deeper to the skin and his eyes were hollowed through, sinking into his skull. Frail as he may appear, River had heard enough to know that he was anything but.

 

She does wonder just exactly how much the Mistress had informed the fellow Time Lords of her life and her family, hoping for an exclusion of the latter half.

 

“Lord High President,” River names respectfully. “I’m honored to be in your presence. Professor River Song, daughter of Amelia and Rory, Human-Plus.”

 

Rassilon cracks a tight grin at her introduction. “Well I dare say, Professor Song, not anymore.”

 

It was a pointed jab at the change of her DNA, how he and the Time Lords had managed to tamper with it. River does not bite, her voice is steady. “This is a gift beyond imagining, however I also find myself a little curious. If I may.” Rassilon’s lips quirked as if he found it, and by extension her, amusing. She takes that as incentive to press on. “Time Lords hardly afford humans and their sort the time of day and so given that I’m in the presence of a Time Lord as legendary as yourself perhaps, if you could so be moved, would pardon me for asking one tiny little question. What it is exactly that you need of me, Lord President?”

 

“You are quite astute for one of your breed, River Song. I hardly think you need me to answer a question you already know.”

 

River ignored another blatant evasion, choosing persistence over treading carefully. “And what exactly is that?”

 

“You neglected to name what you truly are. Why, you are the Doctor’s wife,” Rassilon stated, a glint of malice in his eye. “By any standard that would make you my greatest weapon.”

 

River shrugged it off as a compliment. “You flatter me," River preens. "Was born to it, actually. You can take the girl out of the battlefield but you can’t take the battlefield out of the girl. Do you lot have those sayings here or is that just an Earthbound thing?” Rassilon stared intently, captivated - or more like gauging her every action. Trying to work her out. River could play the part, she very well could indeed. “Do you need someone to kill my fella?” She guessed, all confidence. “Because I’ve done it once or twice and they do say third time’s the charm.”

 

“No one is going to die,” avowed the President of Gallifrey patronizingly.

 

“Do I sense a promise in the making?” River stepped forward brazenly. “Forgive me for saying, Lord President, but from one solider to another, in war one hardly ever makes such promises. Less so ones they have no power or intention of keeping.”

 

“Who says we’re at war?” Rassilon questions. “All we want is to speak to the Doctor. You are the one who knows him better than most so you should know more than anyone that he does not always comply with what is asked of him.”

 

River smiles sweetly. _And who says I’m not cut from the same cloth?_

 

Rassilon leaves it at that and bids her 'until next time', and he exits the way he came. River is alone in the room again. 

 

She has no weapons, no concise workout of the plan the Time Lords have for her or if they have Minerva locked up somewhere near, if they have her at all or if Missy has stashed her somewhere far away from them all. She has no plan of her own worth a damn either. She worries over where they're holding the Doctor. If he is alright.

 

Of all the things stacked up against her, River finds herself surprisingly calm. It takes her a moment to work out why that is and when she does she grants herself permission to feel relief, because this is it. This is how it always begins, call it foreplay.

 

The Doctor and River Song, no way out. 


	33. Thirty-Two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: References to instances in [Chapter 21](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1311856/chapters/5650013)

**_Thirty-Two_ **

 

“What is this place?” Minerva demands, following after Missy. They’d descended into a tunnel with mechanisms and designs Minerva can hardly understand but she trusts the woman in front of her, for better or worse. “It smells… there’s something about the air.”

 

Missy knows very well how the smell of home and time fill up the senses of a Time Lord. It puffs her up with a swell of pride for the young girl however she pushes that feeling down, refusing affection to take its root and cutting it off right at the core.

 

“Eyes front, dearest,” she instructs.

 

“Who helped me?” the girl questioned from behind her. “In that room. I was chained up, and it wasn’t you. It was someone else. A man. Disappeared like a ghost.”

 

“Oh, and insect on the wall I’d say,” evades Missy, “we have many a kind on Gallifrey. Watch your head here.”

 

Mins ducks and follows the Mistress through an archway. The tunnel space appeared to get much less narrow as the seconds passed.

 

“My mother,” Minerva blurted, helpless to stifle the upset she felt, “she took my memories away.”

 

“It’s necessary from time to time,” Missy stated. She felt no need to coddle the girl but the truth of the matter was resolute, no use crying over it. “It’s an old trick for your safety. We’ve all done it once or twice.”

 

“But she took _my_ memories from me!” The girl repeated, gripping at Missy’s elbow and turning the other Time Lady around to face her. It’s not something else anyone has dared to do and Missy would be more upset about it except the girl’s eyes were all fire, impassioned with a fantastical fury.

 

Missy’s nose crinkled and her mouth spread wide in a grin. She extricated herself from Minerva’s hold firstly and then shrugged. “So mummy’s get it wrong all the time,” Missy said, her eyes darting to the fob watch necklace Minerva still had hung around her neck. She reached for it and pulled gently. “That’s why you have Auntie’s who clean up the mess. And,” she could strangle the girl right here and now, “you’re welcome.”

 

Frustrated, Minerva pulled away a fraction, the necklace slipping from Missy’s grasp and the fob watch thumping back onto her chest faintly.  

 

“Come along now,” Missy said, returning to lead them both through the maze-like tunnel, “we’re almost there.”

 

Minerva swallowed down her two varying emotions at the present. It was one thing to feel betrayed for being left behind and another for having a life lived stolen from her. Her mother had done both. She’d have to reconcile both acts with the mother who she remembers in her memories, the one who was love and safety so long as Minerva was in her arms.

 

“Are you aware of how the Doctor fights his enemies, poppet?” Missy interrupts. Minerva is thrown for a moment, finding her emotions hard to disconnect from before Missy echoes, “Chop, chop poppet! We don’t have all day! Not for much longer. I’m sure you’ve been over this with your Captain so go on and answer your Auntie.”

 

At Missy’s demand Minerva forced herself past the chaos that served her reality and urged herself to _think_. The answer was plain and most obvious. “The Doctor uses the plan of his enemy against them,” she answered.

 

Missy twirled to face her and made to tower over Minerva, trapping the girl against the wall between either of her arms and leaving almost no space between the pair of them. “And who would you say is _my_ enemy?”

 

Minerva answered without pause, “The Doctor.”

 

The Mistress’s eyes gleamed black. “Smart lass,” Missy complimented, glancing away. “And now, do you know what would be far more devastating to use against my own enemy?” She positively gleamed, victorious. “Something that would bring him to his knees, in this case, ever so intimately?”

 

Missy waited, for she _knew_ the answer. It’s devastatingly cliché but so has he become.

 

Nothing else but his heart on a platter would do.

 

“You mustn’t cringe,” Missy advised the girl quietly, changing manner and subject so quickly Minerva is frankly at a loss as to how she can follow Missy's train of thought. “And when the time comes, you'll do what needs be done, for _we_ are not doctors. Hmm?”

 

The Mistress pushed herself away from the girl. There’s no doubt that she entertained herself in watching and orchestrating, acting as puppet master is a giddy old time when what is meant to unfold decidedly does so, however there are intimacies involved this time and long awaited revenge to serve and Missy’s not scared of a little blood on her hands.

 

She reaches and pulls the girl up beside her, twining their arms together so they’ll march out side by side.

 

No matter what happens now, unprepared as the girl may be, walking headfirst into what could very well be the ruin of the Doctor’s beloved Gallifrey, Minerva will play the part intended for her. This is another thing Missy _knows_. Perhaps, even, a thing she’ll regret.

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

“Need a change in scenery?”

 

River startled at the voice of Rose Tyler, even more alarmed is she to find the visage she knew to be anything but the girl herself to be occupying the space of her imprisonment so casually.

 

“What do you want?” River demanded. “I’ve got more than enough to deal with here without you popping in for mindless chatter.”

 

“Tense are we,” the Moment surveyed, “I can help with that.” The visage of Rose Tyler faded into that of River’s father, inadvertently seizing River with emotions she thought long dealt with. Evidently not.

 

“No,” River whispered brokenly, “don’t you dare.”

 

“I’m here to help,” the Moment spoke with Rory’s usual ease of self, a touch awkward but selflessly kind. “Tell me what it is you need, River. All I want is to make this easier for you. It’s what dad’s do, don’t they? Go on.” Instantly, he is at her side, “Tell your old dad all about it.”

 

Despite knowing better, Rory’s face brings a state of calm over her. She can feel the tension in her shoulders slip away and her brow easing up, the worry slipping away from her bones with an exhale and her lips curling upward almost without her consent.

 

“There, then,” the Moment says, smiling Rory’s simple grin, “that wasn’t so hard was it.”

 

“I miss you so terribly,” River confesses, the illusion getting the better of her but she can’t help it. She was trained to overcome her sentiments and she’d long ago overrode that.

 

The Moment lays a weighted hand on her shoulder, warmth filling her up. It uses Rory’s face and makes his eyes crinkle up, lighting up brightly at the mere sight of her. Just like he used to.

 

“I’m right here,” he promises, leaning forward and brushing his lips over her forehead, feather light in his affections. River’s eyes shut at the false sensation. Wanting it so badly, it’s what makes this situation so utterly dangerous.

 

“Dad,” River utters. So unbearable to look upon is the trick that River shuts her eyes tightly with the shake of her head, hoping it will make the image of her father disperse. “God, I can’t do this. Please don’t. Change. Anyone else, I beg you.”

 

“I don’t mean to cause you pain.” Her eyes flutter open at the gravelly voice, thankful that the Moment gives her this one kindness. She finds the War Doctor standing in front of her, a mirror of positions to their first and only meeting where she was the one guiding him.

 

“You could’ve fooled me,” she says.

 

The War Doctor smiles, weathered and torn and tired as one of his stature could be. “Would you like a big red button, too?” he quips.  

 

River exhales, coming up at a loss. She’s dizzied with the emotional drought of Rory and thrown off guard with the situation altogether. “I,” but she’s caught. It’s a good manipulation, she’ll give it that.

 

“It’s your turn, River Song,” explains the Moment, the old man’s voice fading back to one Rose Tyler. “And you have to choose.”

 

 

**XXX**

 

 

_“He’s getting worse.”_

_“I thought you were a mechanical wizard girl from a Forest. Don’t you set your eyes like that again! They’re ridiculous. I told you, I can’t fly the Tardis when they do that!”_

_“Daddy,_ please _!”_

_“Don’t_ Daddy please _him, I’m the one being offended here!”_

_“Oi, shut it! Both of you! Pay attention here, look, he opening his eyes.”_

 

The light shining in his face hurts. Flashes of brightness make it impossible to focus. He hears footsteps first, various and trailing around the room in sets. 

 

A man with a headfull of curly grayish-white hair appears in his line of vision, blurry, along with Oswin and Jenny, who stands smiling down at him with a set of teeth whiter than the light above him.

 

“Don’t try to talk,” the Doctor's daughter tells him while another pair of hands press down upon his chest, gentle, but holding him down nonetheless. 

 

Jack blinks and tries to focus on his surroundings, find the room all sharp contrasting metal and chilled only the hum of the Tardis is unmistakable.

 

“You’re going to be fine, Captain,” Oswin Oswald offers in the name of comfort. She appears far more real than the computer code he'd once known her as. 

 

“Yes,” says the man with the curls, “you will.”

 

“Doctor?” Jack guesses, because who else could it be?

 

Jenny smiles down at him, absolutely tickled, “What was it I said about the talking?” She shares a conspiratorial grin with Oswin, one absolutely identical to the one the Doctor has only he's giving it with his eyes instead of a smile.

 

“Where…” Jack finds himself too weak to continue his question.  _Where am I? Where is Minerva, and what about River?_

 

“We’re far off from where you were,” the Doctor states, “but we’re not quite done yet.”

 

Jack is lulled back into unconsciousness with this image. The one of the Doctor, Oswin Oswald and one of his daughter's, Jenny, all in the Tardis, sprinting him away to safety.

 

He doesn’t have the energy to wonder where exactly was it in time that he was taken from or how, or to question the outcome of one River Song, her daughter Mins, the Master, or how faired the Doctor’s past face.

 

When he wakes up again he’s in a bed at the Sisters Of the Infinite Schism, Jenny and Oswin sitting vigil at his bedside.


	34. Thirty-Three.

**_Thirty-Three._ **

 

“This power you’ve felt inside of you,” the Moment prodded, “describe it.”

 

Just because a sentient weapon was inclined to hear her gossip about it didn’t mean River had any plans to. She was hesitant to share more information than she herself knew, especially when the topic was about her state of being. “No.”

 

“It’s been building, hasn’t it?” the Moment instigated. “Bubbling beneath your skin. Itching at your palms, swarming for a way out. It’s no substance to be housed beneath flesh, not compatible with those whom are alive, that can feel. And you do, don’t you? You feel it, in there, bursting and bloodied and bruised.”

 

“Stop it,” River said.

 

The Moment ignored her.

 

“And you wonder, don’t you? River Song has to wonder. What exactly has been done to you? What have they made of you? What terrors are you waking up to this time?”

 

“I said stop it!” River shouted, her unease laid out before her, bare and building at her fingertips. She could _feel_ it. Eerily, the Moment's eyes glowed gold at just that instant. 

 

“You’ve never been the kind to stick your head in the sand, so ask.” The Moment suggested, eyes fading from their glistening aura as River's emotions calmed. “I have all of your answers.”

 

River swallowed, calming her breathing and hoping the sickeningly euphoric feeling bursting beneath her skin would lessen with her efforts.

 

“Your hearts,” the Moment mentioned, “You've felt them, yes?”

 

River saw no harm in giving a single nod in affirmation. 

 

“They’re a deformity, grown from mine own sentient form,” explains the Moment. “A part of me has been transferred into a part of you, a corruption to my intangible form in order to harness my power to a physical host. You, and we, are no longer an entity of self identified autonomy.”

 

The news alarmed River however she quickly desensitized herself from situations like this before, having been stripped of her autonomy time and again. There has yet to be an instance wherein she hadn't been able to get it back, fighting tooth and nail to do so. She can do it again. 

 

“So someone’s weaponized you,” River concluded, finding it easier to focus if she detaches herself and her immediate involvement in the situation. “Why?”

 

“Why does anyone need a weapon?” the Moment inquired. 

 

“War,” answered River without hesitance. “Protection. Revenge.”

 

The Moment hummed its agreement.

 

“Revenge then,” stated River, finding herself at the right summation when there was no disagreement.

 

“And if one needs to house a weapon, one looks for a specimen who is durable,” the Moment supplied. “One that has shown no lack in proficiency. A hybrid creature born one nature and exceeded onto another, surviving either, adapting, becoming. Mythical, in some sense, capable of sustaining infinite possibilities, and even, some would suppose, bred for it.”

 

Chilling and detailed as the observation is to hear aloud, River swallowed down her fear. She knows well that anger can proceed in the likes of stupidity or it can enhance a ridiculous dose of bravery, the latter which she could honestly use. “You said a part of you is in me," she murmured, the confession harder to admit than she'd realized. "When I came back I’d assumed I was like Jack, that whatever they did to me in order to bring me back, it meant I simply couldn’t die anymore. Are you telling me it’s something else?”

 

“Time runs in currency through my form,” the Moment answered.

 

“Of course. Time Lords,” River said, not for the first time, cursing them all.

 

“The thing about time, River Song, it is not meant to be housed. Not by flesh. Time burns.”

 

**XXX**

 

 

The chamber is dark and damp, water clinging to the ceiling that drips and drips, a conditioning tactic leaning towards madness.

 

“This is where they’ve put my mum?”

 

“Goodness, no.” Missy replied, tearing down the cobwebs in her way and walking right through, as if she knows the place by heart. “They don’t keep the golden trinkets down here. This is the dungeons, for the hoodlums and the rogue minded.”

 

“You were here,” Mins said, not a guess. 

 

Missy’s jubilant mood cracks into a fiercer, sharper sort. Colder to her minds eye.

 

“Yes,” Missy admitted. “This is where they put the defected. A punishment. It’s meant to break you.”

 

Mins processes that and wonders exactly what they had done to Missy down here, eventually pondering on how she acquired her current face. From the link Missy made of their minds when Minerva had been put in hospital, stripped from all that she knew, there lingered a growing sensation. A striking likeness that Mins felt towards the Mistress, bordering on outright compassion, developed affection, and even, perhaps, burgeoning trust. Of a state of kin. That's what is was, she's sure. 

 

“Then who else have they put down here?” Mins asked. “Who are we helping?”

 

“The man of the hour,” Missy’s announced, voice husky and delighted as she lifted the torch in her hand, offering light upon the elongated corridor. There, the cell subdivision had been cleared all but one prisoner. His eyes reflected black, glinting, but he approached them nonetheless, his hands closing upon the bars of his cell.

 

“Hello, again,” he greeted.

 

“Hello, dear,” Missy responded, prancing around to the locks and fetching a sonic screwdriver from her dress pockets. “Sorry about the shooting you bit, had to keep you quiet and docile to get you here. Do forgive me. Look, I’ve even got your favorite gadget to help.” She waved the screwdriver and the locks gave without a fuss.  

 

“’Course,” the prisoner said, appearing to play her game for now. He waited for Missy to open his cell, granting him freedom before stepping outside. “I’m not nearly as much trouble unconscious,” he acquiesced, holding his hand out expectantly. "Save for the once or twice. Can't help myself."

 

Missy cackled. She dropped the sonic in his palm and he fishes it away into his coat, straightening his bowtie. Minerva is daunted with the surreal actuality of what is happening right in front of her, of _who_ it is that stands merely a short footwork away.

 

“And you are?” the Doctor turns inquisitive eyes her way.

 

“Thete,” Missy interjected. _We have to move now,_ Mins isn’t certain how she can hear the Mistress’s voice in her head but she can, _not now_ , and she nods, moving firstly to secure their way out and leaving reuniting Time Lords to follow.

 

“Right,” the Doctor said, unaware of the telepathic link that is in place between the two women. “What about River?”

 

“All in good time,” Missy evaded. “We have to get you out of the devil’s claws first."

 

They leave it at that and the Doctor follows after Missy and the mystery girl, holding his silence for the period it takes to get out of Gallifrey’s dungeons and into the underpaths of the city that Missy navigates with far too much ease.

 

Eventually, silence becomes boring. The Doctor itched with questions and he blurted, “I still can’t believe you shot me.”

 

“You don’t stay where you’re told,” Missy responded. “What’s a girl to do? I’m informed there’s little other way for a lady, grand as myself, to hold your attention these days other than with the barrel of a gun pointed at your pretty head.”

 

“That’s not,” the Doctor shook his head, blushing instantaneously, “that’s _not_ how it happened.”

 

Missy rolled her eyes, “Foreplay, yes. Even I’ve heard of it, Thete! Boring.”

 

“Stop calling me that,” the Doctor uttered, frowning.

 

“It’s how I know you,” said the Mistress lowly, meant for only him to hear, “it’s how you know me.”

 

The Doctor grows quiet with memories of friendship and how dearly he clung to them before time twisted the roots and in turn friendship became something else, something more incomprehensible for even him to understand.

 

“Where are we going?” he asked instead.

 

“The citadel has fallen,” Missy informed him.

 

“Yes, the Time War,” recalled the Doctor.

 

“No,” Missy corrected him. “No, long after. We rebuilt. Then, many if not all were found guilty of treason. The Lord High President saw to that.”

 

“Rassilon?” the Doctor needed little conformation. "How?”

 

“I’ll tell you more when we get to our destination,” Missy settled him, brokering no room for more information. 

 

The girl ahead of them, Missy’s accomplice, looks back at them and their eyes meet. The Doctor finds himself smiling at her, she smiles, kindly, back.

 

Missy takes direction, the girl and himself following after her in silence. She leads them through many twists and turns and eventually they come to a dead end. The hard walls of the underpath long given away to structures of older origin, dry dirt and clay. Missy brings her wrist to her lips and the Doctor recognizes it for a teleport device. She utters clear words in Gallifreyan and they are transported straight to the drylands of Gallifrey, the barn he knew as a boy in plain sight not twenty feet away.

 

As they approach, the barn door opens and the Doctor recognizes the man who waits for them.

 

“Doctor,” the acting military commander during and after the Time War offers his hand.

                                                                                                             

“General,” the Doctor greeted, shooting a curiously perplexing glance over at Missy. She smiled, smug. 

 

“Come in,” the General stood aside to allow them passage.

 

The Doctor, Missy, and Minerva walk inside and shut the door.


	35. Thirty-Four.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **AN:** If you ever found yourself wondering just how John Smith  & Melody Pond's fate turned after the Doctor left their universe in _[Justify My Thoughts Of Flight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/857268)_ , wonder no longer.

**_Thirty-Four._ **

**Meanwhile, the happenings of a departed alternative universe did not entirely go by without connection to the Doctor’s own, moments they are, spread through several months gone by.**

****

“Oh, that’ll do, John,” his mother-in-law, Amelia Pond entered the room with him, tears in her eyes, both presented with the sight of Melody Pond-Smith holding a newborn daughter.

 

John Smith could hardly believe it. They had a girl, a baby girl. Lovely and rosy, with ten perfect toes and ten perfect fingers. Her mother was nearly identical in state. Her red cheeks telling of the hourly exertion of labor, curly hair plastered onto her face.

 

“Oh, sweetie,” Melody reached for her husband and he went without hesitation, pressing a grateful kiss onto her lips and wrapping an arm around her, peering down at their child in her arms.

 

“She’s beautiful,” John said, his voice a tremor with such feeling, tears of his own finding their way to filling his eyelids. “Oh my god, oh Mels, she’s just gorgeous.”

 

“All my doing I’m afraid,” Melody grinned at him tiredly, happily.  

 

“Definitely our genes at work,” agreed her mother, wrinkling her nose adorably. John could only nod his head, agreeing with the women easily. “Have you any names in your heads yet?” Amelia asked, holding her arms out as Melody passed their child over to her then collapsed exhaustively back into her hospital bed.

 

John paused at the question, having discussed the one in forefront with Melody as an option but determined to leave it to his wife to ultimately name their child.

 

“We were thinking,” spoke Melody softly, “well John suggested, and now that I see her, I quite love it and it fits. How about River?”

 

Amelia’s face flooded with unmasked emotion and looked up over at John, knowingly connecting with the knowledge they both shared of a certain time travelling Doctor who once landed in their lives out of the sky and saved their family. It was something she and her son-in-law shared and kept to themselves, to heart. It was an important promise and they the vigilant keepers.

 

Amelia looked down at her granddaughter held safely in her arms and beamed. “That’s the name of superheros,” she said, “you’re one lucky girl, you know that?” The baby, River, wriggled in her grandmother’s arms and Amy chuckled heartily. 

 

John brushed back some of his wife’s hair and lean down to kiss her, knowing somewhere out there, in another world, the Doctor had the key to getting his River back, and now John had one of his very own.

 

 

**~ ~ ~**

 

 

When Charlotte Abigail Lux closed her eyes, she was in her Library, floating. She saw rows and rows of books as they were, properly. Not eaten or torn apart, but sturdy and permanent.

 

She saw Doctor Moon and heard his voice answer back when she idles in her dreams as if he were really there. She wondered now if it was just a sentiment or if his code work was a part of her system, downloaded within her, accompanying her into this new world.

 

She doesn’t mind. Amy and Rory were her parents now and they were there when she opened her eyes but she appreciated the company when she closes them. She never liked the feeling of being alone.

 

Life is amazing. Amy doesn’t need to make her pancakes, not having a stomach to eat, but Amy does. She smiles and tells Charlotte her stories, countless stories accumulated from her various experiences either with Rory in this world or those she learned all on her own, there are stories of the growing pains of raising their daughter Melody, or stories from books – all which Charlotte holds so dearly.

 

Rory teaches her medical jargon and is always delighted when she understands, because she does. She’s bright and living in a Library decidedly had its perks. He never has to explain much and they carry on like old chums enamored with the human body and it’s miraculous making.

 

John is like a brother. Clever and wonderfully odd and touchingly protective.

 

Melody has River’s face but she’s not River, Charlotte has a great divide with that fact and perhaps that’s why she never feels quite so comfortable within her presence. She’s nice though and the new baby makes Melody happy, so Charlotte is happy.

 

Life carries on. Life is good. The year passes with little incident. 

 

 

**~ ~ ~**

 

 

Charlotte feels hollowed out one morning, it lasts the entire day and she keeps getting weaker. Amy puts her to bed and promises she’ll feel better the following day. Charlotte believes her.

 

Doctor Moon is different. He speaks words that are too real, too jarring. _There is someone in the Library,_ the words echo, _You must save them._

 

And Cal does. Cal sees it, sees the Library. It’s a ruin. There’s a girl, bright and young and smiling. She brings her along, to safety, and then Charlotte wakes.

 

She rushes to Amy and Rory’s room and shakes her mummy awake, “We have to go.”

 

“Go where?” Amy is half-asleep but alert, believing without question everything that spills from Charlotte’s mouth. “Go back to sleep,” she tells Rory, and he makes to ignore her but his old bones don’t sprite up like they used to and he does as his wife says, grumbles turning into snores in seconds.

 

Amy hurries herself out of bed and throws on her coat, picking up her keys, debating for a second if she has what it takes to drive because she’s not getting any younger and truth being, she just hasn’t been the same about cars since her grandson’s passing.

 

She smiles at Charlotte and says she has to make a call.

 

John shows up at the doorstep, still dressed in his pyjamas, and takes the keys from his mother-in-law. The three of them jumble into John’s five-year-old SUV and Charlotte fills him in on the dream.

 

“We have to go here,” Charlotte points on the map, a land with a deal of water.

 

“Anda… And,” Amy squints her eyes, “Err, what even is that?”

 

John peers at the area Charlotte is pointing to and visibly pales, “That’s Norwegian, I think.” He turns his eyes back to the road.

 

“Yes,” Charlotte says, “I believe it means ‘Breathe The Pond’.”

 

**~ ~ ~**

 

 

At first Jenny is unaware of the sickly chill or the sounding lull of movement though she virtually feels motionless. Her clothes are sticking to her and her body feels a clammy cold settle over like a sheen.

 

Water, she registers. She’s somewhere with water. It’s shallow. She can feel the ground beneath her. Sturdy. She can’t quite muster the strength to move and so she doesn’t, allowing her face to fall sideways and the water, streaming steadily, slaps at her cheek, piercingly numbing.

 

Jenny remembers comforting her sister, both of them being hunted in a room full of shadows. She had to know, she had to see for herself. The Library was gone, and so was Oswin.

 

_It’s all going to be okay, Mins_

 

_I love you_

 

But she loved Oswin, too.

 

It was all for a girl, and isn’t that just a touch cliché? Jenny never cared for them but she knows how it goes, the tropes. But her heart was on the line and she wasn’t about to back down from matters of the heart. Especially not with a chance, and all you needed was ever really one. One good sliver of possibility, one to bet your life on.

 

And she had. She had.

 

 

**~ ~ ~**

 

 

It’s John that recognizes her first. Memories fade in human beings but the Doctor's life sticks in his head like a second skin, never forgotten. Pale blonde hair, little dimpled nose. Tiny, curled up into herself in the pond. It’s freezing out and the Doctor’s daughter is visibly trembling, skin already turning blue.

 

“It’s a duck pond,” Amelia exclaimed breathlessly from behind him, shivering in her own ill-chosen clothes. “I can’t believe it. This is the place?”

 

“Yes,” John whispered, wasting no time in hopping over the railing and into the pond. He heard Amelia gasp once her eyes landed on what he had seen. He waded over and scooped up the girl in the water, securing her in his arms before making his way back.

 

It was difficult to keep Jenny in his arms as he crossed over on back outside the duck pond but he managed it, gripping onto her a bit too tightly. He and Amelia sprinted to his car and placed the girl in the back, Amelia sacrificing her own coat to cover the pale woman. John and Amelia hurried back into the car and turned up the heating.

 

“Is she going to make it?” Amelia asked, glancing behind her seat.

 

“She’s alive,” Charlotte confirmed, laying her hand on the girl’s forehead and shutting her eyes.

 

“Wait, what are you doing?” Amelia shouted, “ _Charlotte_!”

 

“I need to save her,” Charlotte urged. “I’ll be fine. I always am.”

 

“Let her do it, Amy,” John said, glimpsing at the situation playing out from the rear-view mirror.

 

Amelia swallowed, “Promise me, Charlotte, promise me you’ll be okay!”

 

“I will be, mummy, I swear,” the child smiled bravely.

 

Charlotte shut her eyes and summoned her healing protocol. She hadn’t even known she had one, not consciously, but she was using it now. The protocol went right to work, pumping heat back into Jenny’s body and finding the girl’s temperature, bringing it back to its normal setting, or whatever humans called it. Rory would know.

 

Jenny’s two hearts pulsed and she came back to life with a start, the shock of it jolting her forward with a wail escaping her lips. 

 

“Oswin!” she called out, voice hoarse, but with enough volume to spook John Smith, causing him to pull at the wheel, the car inadvertently swerving on the road.

 

 

**TBC**


End file.
